Preamble

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.]

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (POOLE) BILL.

As amended, considered; read the Third time, and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — CATERING TRADES (REGULATION).

Captain Strickland: asked the Minister of Labour whether he proposes to set up a trade board for those engaged in the catering trade; whether this will include the on-licensed section of the licensed trade and clubs catering for meals; and whether such legislation will be introduced by a Bill or a Special Order?

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): I have the question of the regulation of the terms and conditions of service in the catering trades under active consideration, and there has already been one consultation with representatives of the employers and trade unions concerned.

Captain Strickland: Will my right hon. Friend answer the latter part of the Question, and will he also bear in mind the many ramifications of the trades that do catering as part of their enterprise—for instance, the licensed trades? Will there be any means of bringing them into the scheme?

Mr. Bevin: With regard to the latter part of the Question, I apologise for not making it clear that this will have to be done by legislation. With regard to the comprehensive character of what I propose, it is intended to make provisions for dealing with the whole of the catering trade, and the devices I have been engaged in working out will allow for flexibility in order that the special conditions of the different branches may be dealt with on their merits.

Captain Strickland: Has the right hon. Gentleman in mind the catering trade, including the licensed liquor trade, or the meals trade?

Mr. Bevin: The whole of it. I would remind the hon. and gallant Gentleman that the policy of the Government is not to leave trades, industries and services of this character unregulated for the postwar period. We must make provision in order that there can be a settling back into these industries on regulated, and not on unregulated conditions.

Mr. Graham White: From the negotiations which the Minister has had with employers and others, does he hope to be able to proceed by an agreed Measure?

Mr. Bevin: I always hope that.

Oral Answers to Questions — JUVENILES (POST-WAR EMPLOYMENT).

Sir Harold Webbe: asked the Minister of Labour whether he proposes to publish the memorandum recently presented to him by the London Regional Advisory Council for Juvenile Employment on the problems of post-war entry of juveniles into employment?

Mr. Bevin: Yes, Sir. I have arranged for the publication of the memorandum, and copies are available to Members in the Votes Office. The memorandum does not necessarily reflect the Government's views, but I am glad to have this opportunity of acknowledging the value of this contribution by the London Regional Advisory Council to the consideration of post-war problems, and I hope that the publication of the memorandum will stimulate public interest in the questions involved.

Oral Answers to Questions — MILITARY SERVICE.

Conscientious Objectors.

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: asked the Minister of Labour how many men and women, respectively, have registered a conscientious objection to military service in the present war; and what was the number of men to register in the war of 1914–18?

Major Petherick: asked the Minister of Labour how many persons claimed, and how many were granted, exemption


from military service on the grounds of conscience during the years 1914 to 1918, and during this war to date?

Mr. Bevin: I have only approximate figures for 1914–1918, when about 16,000 men claimed to be conscientious objectors and about 6,000 were refused exemption from military service. During this war between 63,000 and 64,000 men have applied to be registered as conscientious objectors and up to 6th June last tribunals had registered 26,123 of them as conscientious objectors either unconditionally or on condition that they undertook specified civil work and 13,221 others as liable for non-combatant service. Of the women in the age groups being called up under the National Service Acts, 1,714 have applied to be registered as conscientious objectors and up to 6th June last 83 had been registered either conditionally or unconditionally.

Sir A. Knox: Can the Minister account for the enormous increase in the number of people registering as conscientious objectors? Does he not think that generally things are made too easy for them?

Mr. Bevin: I do not think there is any real comparison that can be made between this war and the last war. In the early days of the last war, recruiting was voluntary. The figures I have given for this war cover a period in which compulsion started even before the war. Therefore, the comparison is rather odious. I am quite convinced that the methods and tolerance displayed in this country during this war with regard to this problem have created a very favourable opinion of us all over the world and have been of great benefit.

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes: Is the Minister aware that there is a number of societies which encourage so-called conscientious objectors to avoid military service?

Mr. Bevin: I think the tribunals are well aware of the facts concerning those who go before them.

Mr. George Griffiths: Can the Minister give the percentage of conscientious objectors in the last war and the percentage in this war?

Mr. Bevin: No, I cannot.

Major Petherick: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will consider introducing legislation to prohibit the Central Board for Conscientious Objectors or any other body or individual from encouraging any person to claim exemption from military service on the grounds of conscience, or from aiding that person in the preparation of his case for exemption?

Mr. Bevin: No, Sir. It is already an offence under Defence Regulation 39A to incite any person to evade service under the National Service Acts.

Major Petherick: Is the Minister aware that some of these societies are definitely subversive and that some have been encouraging persons to evade military service and helping them to prepare their case for hearing before the tribunal? Is not a man's conscience his own affair, which cannot be explained by anybody other than himself?

Mr. Bevin: Any person with a conscience should have the right to clarify that conscience when presenting his case to a tribunal.

Mr. Petherick: How can you clarify your conscience by proxy?

Mr. Bevin: I understand that the legal profession make a great fortune out of it.

Police (Pay and Conditions).

Mr. William Brown: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will take steps, in conjunction with county and town police authorities, to ensure uniformity of treatment as regards men called up for the Army in respect of balance of civil pay and retention by wives and families of police houses unless the houses are required for police purposes, respectively?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I believe that most police authorities make an allowance to supplement Service pay, but the matter is, by law, one for their discretion and I have no power to require uniformity of treatment. The occupation of police houses is also a matter for local arrangement and I have no doubt that, so far as the requirements of the police service permit, sympathetic consideration is given to the wishes of the wives and families of men who are serving with the Armed Forces.

Mr. Brown: Short of possessing powers at the Home Office to ensure that uniformity, is it not possible for the Minister to exercise some influence on local government authorities to ensure that we avoid the present anomalies, which are giving rise to a good deal of discontent?

Mr. Morrison: I think that if the House leaves the local authorities with discretionary powers, the Minister cannot very well coerce them, but I understand that this matter will shortly be considered by the Police Federation, and I shall be prepared to consider whether I can usefully take any action in the light of any representations which the Federation may make.

Incitement to Evasion.

Sir A. Knox: asked the Home Secretary how many societies, such as the Peace Pledge Union, are actively assisting opposition to military service?

Mr. H. Morrison: If my hon. and gallant Friend has in mind assistance given to conscientious objectors in preparing and presenting their cases to the tribunals, I am not in a position to give a list of the pacifist or religious bodies which may interest themselves in this matter. If, however, he has any information to suggest that activities are being carried on in contravention of the provisions of Defence Regulation 39A, relating to endeavours to incite persons to evade their duties or liabilities under the National Service Acts, I shall be glad to receive such information and to look into the matter.

Sir A. Knox: Is it not true that a number of societies, including the Peace Pledge Union, are actively assisting conscientious objectors to evade their duty to their country? Does the Minister not consider that these societies do far more harm to the war effort than any of the many ex-Service men who are interned in the Isle of Man would be likely to do if released?

Mr. Morrison: I think my hon. and gallant Friend is unwise to mix up two things. I cannot do that. As my predecessor indicated in answer to a somewhat similar Question, we do not regard it as illegal to give advice on the law and on technical points at the proceedings of these tribunals, and I do not think we

should be justified in interfering on those grounds. The doubt is whether they are really discouraging people from undertaking military service, and, if there is any evidence of that, I shall be glad to look into it.

Mr. Rhys Davies: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that the Peace Pledge Union do not touch the problem until a person has declared he is a conscientious objector?

Major Petherick: As sabotaging of machinery is subject to great penalties, does not the Minister think that attempts to sabotage man-power should be met by equivalent penalties?

Mr. Morrison: Certainly, that is the evidence for which I am asking, and, if there is any evidence, I shall be glad to look into it.

Major Petherick: Will not the Home Office make inquiries and produce the evidence required?

Mr. Morrison: I get all sorts of accusations about the quasi-judicial procedure at the Home Office, and I think my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion is rather abnormal; it might open me to charges from other quarters.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL DEFENCE.

Personnel (War Production Work).

Mr. Brooke: asked the Home Secretary what progress is being made in developing schemes of munitions work for Civil Defence personnel whilst on duty?

Mr. H. Morrison: As the answer is rather long, I will, with Mr. Speaker's permission, make a statement at the end of Questions.

Later:

Mr. Morrison: Subject to the maintenance of the efficiency of the Civil Defence services by such training and exercises as are necessary, to the prior claims of other essential work connected with these services, and to the suitability of the premises, I should welcome any opportunity for men and women on duty in fire stations and other Civil Defence depots to take a more direct part in war production.
I am advised by the Supply Departments, however, that in. view of the demands upon machinery and supervisory staff and the need to ensure the most economical use of materials and transport, the field of such opportunity is necessarily limited. Generally speaking, the work will have to be in the nature of sub-contracting, and experience so far gained of the informal arrangements which have come to notice points to the need of some standardised system of control of price to secure that no firm using this method of sub-contracting shall gain any advantage from the use of Civil Defence personnel. I am in consultation with the Supply Departments in the matter.
I have been led to the conclusion that no individual additional payment should be made to men and women who volunteer to undertake this work. Apart from the known desire of many members of the services to make a voluntary contribution to productive industry in the national interest—indeed one trade union catering for Civil Defence personnel has conducted a campaign in favour of productive work at the depots—the difficulties of fixing a fair basis of pay for those who are already receiving remuneration for full-time service are well-nigh insuperable. The limited amount of work that can be given out varies in type according to the districts, the physical facilities at each depot, the numbers on duty and the amount of time that each could give to the work. Anything corresponding to uniform workshop production and conditions is, therefore, out of the question. The payment of additional remuneration to those members of the services who are fortuitously in a position to offer to undertake productive work during a part of their duty hours and the withholding of additional payment from those who for good reasons have no opportunity to do so, would create inequalities of pay and would be bound to give rise to discontent. I am, however, considering whether an appropriase part of the contractors' payment for the work done could indirectly be made available for the collective benefit of members of the services.

Mr. Cluse: Owing to the scarcity of labour in municipal offices, would it not be possible to utilise some of the labour in the depots nearest to those offices, perhaps only temporarily, and so assist the municipalities to carry out their duties?

Mr. Morrison: My hon. Friend will find that that possibility is provided for in the circular which I have addressed to local authorities.

Mr. Brooke: Is the Minister aware that many men in Civil Defence services will be bitterly disappointed unless he can expedite the arrangement by which they are enabled, in or near Civil Defence premises, to take part in production?

Mr. Morrison: I am very anxious to do all I can. The problem is one for solution by the Supply Departments. Very great difficulties face them. They might detach units of production in a way which might lead to a net reduction of production rather than an increase, but I am sure they will do all they can, and my hon. Friend may be sure that I will also.

Travel Permits, Northern Ireland.

Dr. Little: asked the Home Secretary whether in the case of ministers of religion in Britain taking duty in Northern Ireland or vice versa, he will lower the period of three months' duty for the granting of a. travel permit to one month to facilitate the exchange of ministers within the United Kingdom?

Mr. H. Morrison: It is necessary to limit travel between Great Britain and Ireland as far as possible, and I regret that I should not feel justified in authorising the grant of travel permits to enable clergymen to travel to either country for the purpose of taking up appointments for periods of less than three months.

Dr. Little: Does not my right hon. Friend consider that a free exchange of ministers of religion between Great Britain and Northern Ireland would encourage people and help the war effort?

Mr. Morrison: I am not quite sure about it. Frankly, I do not think this is one of the most pressing claims for a concession on this particular restriction.

Dr. Little: asked the Home Secretary whether, in order to obviate cases of hardship and to allow for a period of needed recuperation for teachers and students, he will make arrangements whereby all Northern Ireland teachers and students in Britain will receive travel permits to enable them to spend their summer holidays at home with their friends in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Morrison: If for security purposes there is to be control over this traffic, there must be a limit on the number of journeys which individuals are allowed to make; and the fact that a particular class of persons may get several holidays in a year is not a ground on which I should be justified in granting them permits for extra journeys beyond those allowed under the general rules.

Dr. Little: Does not my right hon. Friend consider that it would be in the interests of education in Great Britain and in the interests of the health of these persons if they were allowed to spend the long summer holidays at home instead of paying for lodgings when they ought to be at home?

Professor Savory: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that these devoted teachers have come over to this country in order to enable you to keep your schools open and carry on your educational system? Does not that demand kindly consideration and even indulgence?

Mr. Morrison: I am not sufficiently confident about the motives of the teachers to be able to judge of that matter. I am very sorry about the inconvenience this must cause, but there is a war on, and there must be restrictions on travel. I am afraid I cannot make any concession at this time.

National Fire Service.

Commander Locker-Lampson: asked the Home Secretary whether he will repeal the new regulations in the National Fire Service involving different shifts and different time off, as they have met with so much opposition?

Mr. H. Morrison: No new regulations have been issued, but I have informed the representatives of the trade unions concerned that I propose to institute a standard system of duty in the National Fire Service as soon as practicable. I have fully considered the whole question, including the objections which have been raised, but I have come to the conclusion that it is necessary to adopt the proposed duty system which is already in force over a large part of the country, on operational considerations which must be paramount.

Commander Locker-Lampson: Will the Minister receive a deputation on this matter?

Mr. Morrison: We are in frequent consultation with the Trades Union Joint Consultative Committee, of which the Fire Brigade Union are a part, and it is always open to them to make representations.

Oral Answers to Questions — AMUSEMENT MACHINES.

Mr. Donald Scott: asked the Home Secretary whether he has considered a motion passed by the Whitley and Monkseaton Urban District Council at their meeting on 20th June, a copy of which has been sent to him, with regard to the closing of premises in their district used in housing electrically-controlled machines used for pleasure or gaming purposes; and what action he intends to take in the matter, in view of the undesirability of attracting young civilians and members of His Majesty's Forces to spend money at such places?

Mr. H. Morrison: Yes, Sir, and I have recently had the whole question of the influence of such places on young people under review. After considering the representations I have received in conjunction with reports from the police I have come to the conclusion that while the police should continue to enforce the existing law and to take action when the element of betting or gambling is more than trivial there are no sufficient grounds to justify me in proposing at the present time new statutory provisions with regard to these places.

Mr. Scott: Can the Minister say whether local authorities have any power with regard to the number of these places and the number of hours they are open each day?

Mr. Morrison: I do not think so. As far as I know, the local authorities have no statutory powers in the matter, except through the police.

Mr. Woodburn: Will the Minister take steps to verify that these machines are not faked in any way and give a perfectly reasonable chance?

Oral Answers to Questions — TAXICAB JOURNEY (CONVICTIONS).

Major Sir Jocelyn Lucas: asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has


been called to a conviction and fine of £1 and £20, respectively, on the driver and owner of a taxicab for refusing a fare from Morecambe to Newmarket and back, a distance of 480 miles; whether he will remit this fine and give the name, address and occupation of the person engaging the taxicab and of the person or authority initiating the prosecution; and what steps he is taking to deal with them?

Mr. H. Morrison: From the inquiries I have made, it seems that my hon. and gallant Friend has been misinformed as to the nature of these proceedings. The prosecution was in respect of the acceptance, not the refusal, of a fare, the driver being fined £1 for waste of petrol, the hirer being fined £10 for aiding and abetting, and the owners being fined £20 for permitting the offence. I understand that the defendants have appealed to quarter sessions and that the appeal has not yet been determined. The case is accordingly still before the courts and I cannot intervene in any way.

Sir J. Lucas: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I am very glad to receive that answer after the reports which have appeared in the Press?

Mr. Denville: Can the penalty be increased at quarter sessions?

Mr. Morrison: Yes, Sir, on appeal.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION.

Universtiy Students (Deferment of Call-up).

Mr. John Dugdale: asked the President of the Board of Education whether he will consult with the Minister of Labour with a view to deferring the calling-up of a small percentage of university students who have shown exceptional talent and whose retention for a further year is specially recommended by the university authorities?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education (Mr. Ede): My right hon. Friend has throughout been in consultation with my right hon. Friend he Minister of Labour and National Service and is satisfied that suitable arrangements have been made with regard to the deferment of the calling-up of students at universities.

Mr. Dugdale: Is my hon. Friend aware that deferment is granted only in cases where students are engaged upon work which will in some way benefit the war effort, and that no deferment is granted on purely scholastic grounds?

Mr. Ede: The deferment of calling-up university students is not my right hon. Friend's direct responsibility, and I suggest that any further questions on the subject should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service.

Religious and Ethical Instruction.

Mr. Sorensen: asked the President of the Board of Education how many different versions of agreed syllabuses of religious instruction are in use by education committees; what attempt has been made to correlate or co-ordinate these whether any suggested syllabus of ethical instruction of a religious nature has been considered apart from the agreed syllabuses; what official committee is considering the need and nature of ethical instruction, who are its members; and whether, in his proposals, he will provide for the full progressive appreciation of ethical principles and democratic ideals and for preparation for this in the training colleges?

Mr. Ede: The Board have no record of the number of agreed syllabuses in use by local education authorities. The answers to the second, third and fourth parts of the Question are in the negative. In reply to the last part, while it is not the Board's practice to prescribe the content or methods of school instruction, their Handbook of Suggestions for Teachers emphasises the importance of fostering the progressive appreciation of ethical principles and democratic ideals. The part which the training colleges should play in this matter will no doubt be considered by the Committee my right hon. Friend has appointed to review the recruitment and training of teachers.

Mr. Sorensen: In view of the undoubted importance of the whole question of ethical and religious training, would it not be advisable to secure copies of these various agreed syllabuses now in operation in the country, and will the Committee which has been established give this point its most serious consideration?

Mr. Ede: With regard to the second part of the question, I have no doubt that the Committee on the recruitment and training of teachers will devote the appropriate amount of time to consider this, matter. With regard to the first part of the question, we are at present endeavouring to cut down as much as possible all unnecessary requirements by way of returns from local education authorities.

Professor Savory: Has my hon. Friend's attention been called to the religious syllabus of Northern Ireland, agreed to by the Church of Ireland and the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, which has given universal satisfaction?

Mr. Ede: I have seen a copy of that syllabus; but I am an Englishman, and I like to have my religion made at home.

Mr. G. Griffiths: To which denomination does my hon. Friend belong?

Mr. Ede: Not to that of my hon. Friend.

Public Schools Committee.

Mr. Edmund Harvey: asked the President of the Board of Education whether the terms of reference-of the Departmental Committee on public schools will permit the Committee to consider the future position of independent boarding schools not conducted for private profit which do not have membership in the Headmasters' Conference or in the Governing Bodies Association; and, if not, whether he will consider an enlargement of the terms of reference to allow for this?

Mr. Ede: The terms of reference, as announced, were calculated to define the meaning of the term "Public School" for the purposes of the inquiry. But the Committee will not be precluded from considering the circumstances of schools outside their purview in so far as they may be relevant to the subject of their inquiry.

Mr. Lipson: Will the inquiry include preparatory boarding schools?

Mr. Ede: That is covered in the last few words of my answer.

Mr. Harvey: May I take it that the inquiry will include experimental boarding schools, schools connected with various denominations, co-educational schools and others?

Mr. Ede: Yes, Sir, in so far as they are relevant to the general subject matter of the inquiry.

Sir Percy Harris: Why is it that the list is, for the most part, confined to schools patronised by the wealthy, and that many other very good schools are put in a lower category?

Mr. Ede: I am by no means sure that the category is lower.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH.

Nursing Service.

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the present shortage of nurses and the special value of the profession, he will take further steps to improve the status of the nursing services throughout the country?

The Minister of Health (Mr. Ernest Brown): I have taken various steps which will, I hope, help to secure for the nurse a more general recognition of her importance and proper status. If my hon. Friend will let me know what further steps he has in mind, I will gladly consider them.

Mr. De la Bère: Is not my right hon. Friend aware of the magnificent service rendered by the nursing services, both past and present, and is he not further aware of the very meagre recognition they have had? Will he take steps really to improve their position, which is not very good at the present time?

Mr. Brown: I think my hon. Friend must have been so busy on other things that he is not aware of the fact that in April, 1941, we set up a special Nursing. Division in the Ministry, to the great gratification of all. We take every opportunity to impress on the public the importance of nursing. As far as improvement in salaries and conditions is concerned, I have set up a Committee under Lord Rushcliffe, and that Committee' is at this moment reviewing the conditions, salaries and emoluments of the nursing service. Furthermore, nursing is recognised as vital war work by the Minister of Labour and National Service. I think my hon. Friend must have overlooked all this.

Mr. De la Bère: Can the Minister tell us what the. Committee have achieved, because


nothing has been done as yet? Is he aware that I have plenty of time to deal with things which really matter, and I have gone into this very fully indeed?

Mr. Brown: If the hon. Member has any evidence of a practical character, Lord Rushcliffe's Committee will be glad to have it.

Commander Locker-Lampson: Is it not a fact that nurses are overworked and underpaid?

Dr. Edith Summerskill: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that, however many committees he sets up, while he allows young nurses to be paid £40 a year he will never solve this problem?

Mr. Brown: The hon. Lady knows that that is not quite a fair question. As far as my administrative power is concerned, within two months of my coming to the Ministry steps were taken to improve the conditions of the Civil Nursing Reserve. This Committee was set up for the specific purpose of carrying out what the whole country would desire, a proper recognition of the value of this great service.

Mr. De la Bère: It is a scandal of the first magnitude.

Midwives.

Mr. Lipson: asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the great shortage, especially in reception areas, of nurses trained to deal with maternity cases, he will enrol a mobile squad of nurses who will be willing to go, when required, to areas where they are most needed?

Mr. E. Brown: The need for relating provision for maternity cases to movements of population has been recognised and the supply of midwives in reception areas has been increased both by transfer and by arrangements for recall to, practice. My information is that the deficiency is rather in the total number of midwives available than in maldistribution and I do not think, therefore, that the suggestion of a mobile squad would assist.

Mr. Lipson: In Cheltenham the shortage is particularly acute. What is the objection to adopting this obvious and valuable suggestion?

Mr. Brown: I should not care to argue that now, but I shall be pleased to look at the particular case of Cheltenham if the hon. Member will give me the facts concerned.

Milk.

Mr. David Adams: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that persons suffering loss and damage through illness traceable to infected milk unfit for human consumption have a right of action against vendors of such milk; and whether, as the financial circumstances of poorer citizens prevent their taking such action, the local authorities in such cases make ex gratia payments?

Mr. E. Brown: I am aware that in certain circumstances there may be such a right of action as is referred to in the first part of the Question; I am not aware that local authorities make such payments as are referred to in the second part of the Question.

Mr. Adams: Does the right hon. Gentleman not consider that the local authorities ought to have power to recoup sufferers in their areas?

Mr. Brown: It is not quite as simple as that. In the absence of negligence by the vendor there is not a right of action in every case. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Square v. Model Farm Dairies (Bournemouth) Ltd., which he will find in 55 "Times" Law Report, page 384.

Dr. Summerskill: Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that, unless he presses for an amendment of the national milk scheme, which comes into operation in September, and arranges for the purification of all milk, the Government will be morally responsible for the dissemination of tuberculosis?

Mr. Brown: The hon. Lady knows that everything is being done that is practicable in view of war conditions.

Mr. D. Adams: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the rise of dangerous milk for human consumption supplied to Newcastle-on-Tyne citizens as undesignated milk for the years 1939, 1940 and 1941, shown from 758, 738 and 571 samples, respectively, with unsatisfactory percentages of 24.6, 30.4 and 38.7 and that daily bacterio-logical


examinations would reveal some 75 per cent. of such milk unsatisfactory; and whether it is intended to use such data as the above in the campaign for the better health of the nation?

Mr. Brown: I am aware of figures for 1939 and 1940, but I cannot trace the receipt of figures for 1941. I understand that these figures show the proportion of milk found unsatisfactory according to the cleanliness tests prescribed for designated milks. Such results serve to emphasise the need for the measures included in the recent White Paper on Milk Policy, and I trust that these, in conjunction with the work of local authorities, will contribute to improving the position.

Mr. Adams: Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that the corollary of this question is the erection of plant for pasteurising this milk instead of poisoning the citizens?

Mr. Brown: We have to work inside the limits of what is practicable now.

Dr. Summerskill: Has the right hon. Gentleman forgotten that there were 13,000 notifications of non-pulmonary tuberculosis last year?

Mr. Brown: I have not forgotten it.

Mr. Adams: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I will persist in these questions until satisfaction is obtained?

Oral Answers to Questions — BILLETING.

Major Conant: asked the Minister of Health (1) whether, in order that householders upon whom billeting demands are made may know what can legally be demanded of them, he will ensure that all billeting officials carry with them a clear statement indicating the maximum accommodation which they are entitled to demand and the exact conditions attached to it, and are required to show such a statement to householders and explain its implications before making any demands;
(2) whether he will ensure that all circulars issued to householders in respect to billeting contain in clear terms a statement as to the conditions upon which the billets are required?

Mr. E. Brown: A statement of the billeting requirements, including the accommodation and services, if any, to be provided

by the householder, appears on the billeting notices which are issued by billeting officers to householders whenever billeting takes place. I am sending my hon. and gallant Friend copies of these notices, and if he has any special difficulty in mind and will give me particulars, I will gladly look into it.

Major Conant: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that officials temporarily employed often have only a very vague idea of their powers, and, in consequence, householders are misled in the offers they make and the requirements they are told they have to fulfil?

Mr. Brown: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman looks at the paper I am sending him he will see that there is no justification for that. There is, of course, no statutory maximum of accommodation which may be demanded, but as every billeting officer in the country, whether regular or temporary, is well aware, in ordinary circumstances the standard to which they work is one person per habitable room.

Oral Answers to Questions — POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS (COST).

Mr. Tinker: asked the Minister of Health the average cost to maintain a person in a Poor Law institution; and what steps can be taken to recover part of the cost from relatives?

Mr. E. Brown: The latest figure, which is for the year ended 31st March, 1938, is £1 8s. 9d. per week. Failing agreement with the liable relatives the authority may apply to a petty sessional court under Section 19 (2) of the Poor Law Act, 1930, for orders of maintenance upon those relatives.

Mr. W. Brown: In view of those figures, how on earth does the right hon. Gentleman expect an old age pensioner to live on 10s. a week—

Mr. E. Brown: The answer is that I do not.

Mr. W. Brown: —and the supplementary pension?

Oral Answers to Questions — POPULATION STATISTICS (REPRODUCTION RATE).

Mr. Ivor Thomas: asked the Minister of Health whether the recently disclosed increase in the net reproduction


rate from 0.75 to 0.80 represents a real increase in fertility or is only the result of the fuller information obtained under the Population (Statistics) Act?

Mr. E. Brown: The figure of 0.75 was an approximation only, adopted pending the provision of fertility data under the Population (Statistics) Act which have enabled the net reproduction rate to be more correctly assessed at 0.80.

Oral Answers to Questions — OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Mr. Tinker: asked the Minister of Health the position of a person in receipt of old age pension who is taken into a Poor Law institution; whether the pension is drawn by the Poor Law authorities; and can the relatives be called upon to pay something in addition towards his maintenance while in the institution.

Mr. E. Brown: With regard to the first two parts of the Question I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) on 2nd July. As to the third part, the balance of the cost of maintenance may be recovered from the relatives who are liable under Section 14 of the Poor Law Act, 1930, to relieve and maintain the pensioner.

Mr. Tinker: I take it that the pension is taken by the Poor Law authorities? Does the right hon. Gentleman think it fair that the relatives should be called upon to be taxed in addition? The old age pension ought to be sufficient to maintain the person.

Mr. Brown: It is not a matter of my opinion, but of what the law is. The whole of this question of public assistance is at present under consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions — CONDEMNED BUILDINGS (DEMOLITION AND CLEARANCE).

Mr. Hannah: asked the Minister of Health whether, in order to deal with cases in which all the requirements of the Housing Act of 1930 are satisfied by the demolition of a condemned building, he will take steps to give the local authority power to require the owner to clear the site of old beams, bricks and other rubbish?

Mr. E. Brown: I may remind my hon. Friend that a Clause to this effect was proposed in the Housing Bill of 1935, but was rejected on the grounds that it would have been confined to sites under the Housing Acts and that if anything of this kind were to be done it should be applicable to all sites. The matter, though important, is small in relation to the position created by war damage and has been noted for future general legislation.

Mr. Hannah: Is it not a very absurd state of the law that although it is all right to destroy a building and make an appalling mess, the building may not be used for any other than residential purposes even though in a few cases there may be interesting archaeological features about it?

Mr. Brown: There is a general aphorism about the law, but I express no opinion about it.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES (PENSIONS AND GRANTS).

Mr. Mathers: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he is now prepared to take steps to obviate the hardship caused by the withdrawal of war service grants after the wives to whom such payments are made become widows through their husbands being killed on service, especially in view of the fact that pensions allowances are usually lower than the payments received apart from the war service grants, thus involving a double reduction?

The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): As the hon. Member is aware, a wife or dependant who is in receipt of a war service grant at the date of the member's death continues to receive the grant for any period during which the Service Department pays allotment and allowances, normally 13 weeks. As I have previously stated in this House pensions in respect of death necessarily have regard to considerations other than those which apply to supplementary allowances paid during a man's temporary absence on war service to meet commitments which, by reason of that service, he is unable to meet. Moreover, the rates of pension are not related to the personal circumstances of the dead member and I am not prepared to recommend a change in this respect.

Mr. Mathers: Does not the right hon. Gentleman admit the hardship involved to a widow who is continuing to pay, for example, instalment contributions in respect of commitments entered into by her husband before being called up for the Army? Does he not see the necessity for remedying this intolerable position?

Sir W. Womersley: I do not agree on the question of hardship. If the hon. Member will bring any case to my notice I will go into it with care.

Mr. Mathers: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that having brought such cases to his notice I was referred to a charitable institution for relief from the hardship which the Minister apparently recognised on that particular case? As I am unable to make any impression upon him I will take other opportunities of pressing the matter.

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he has contracts with manufacturers of artificial limbs; and whether he has any proposals for controlling the prices of these commodities?

Sir W. Womersley: Yes, Sir. My Department has contracts with manufacturers of artificial limbs and carries out such costing investigations as are considered necessary to control the prices of limbs supplied at public expense.

Mr. Bellenger: Are not most of the artificial limbs which my right hon. Friend uses in his hospitals supplied by private manufacturers under contract, and is he aware of the wide discrepancy in prices of limbs supplied to him and those supplied to members of the public?

Sir W. Womersley: I am responsible for supplying limbs to persons disabled by enemy action, and as a business man turned politician I see that we. get them at a right and a fair price. Facilities are provided by the Committee of Roehampton Hospital to deal with civilian cases on good terms, and I would refer my hon. Friend to the Chairman of that Committee, who is an ex-Member of this House.

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Minister of Pensions whether, in assessing eligibility of a dependant for a pension in the case of a deceased soldier, regard is had to any voluntary allotment which was made by the soldier to his dependant while serving

with the Forces, or whether the contribution he made to his dependant prior to his enlistment is the only consideration, other than need, taken into account in establishing eligibility for pension?

Sir W. Womersley: Neither contribution before enlistment nor allotment during service is an essential condition for the award of pension to a parent.

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Minister of Pensions whether any appeal tribunals still exist to consider pension cases arising out of the last war?

Sir W. Womersley: Yes, Sir. There is now no whole-time tribunal to deal with Great War cases, but two part-time tribunals in Great Britain—one covering England and Wales and the other Scotland—meet as required.

Mr. Bellenger: As these tribunals naturally have little work to do in connection with cases arising out of the last war, cannot my right hon. Friend extend the part-time tribunal system to deal with the numerous cases which are now coming forward as a result of this war?

Sir W. Womersley: I said the other day in answer to a Question on tribunals that I hope to make a full statement on this matter very shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA.

American Technical Mission (Report).

Mr. S. O. Davies: asked the Secretary of State for India whether he will place at the disposal of Members of Parliament the report with regard to India, of Dr. Grady, economic adviser to Mr. Roosevelt, a copy of which report was presented to the Viceroy?

The Secretary of State for India (Mr. Amery): A summary, prepared by the Government of India, of the preliminary report of the American Technical Mission which was presided over by Dr. Grady is being placed in the Library. The report itself is not being published, but the summary presents a faithful picture of the recommendations.

Bishwanath Das (Arrest).

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for India whether he has any information respecting the arrest of


Bishwanath Das, former Premier of Orissa; what is the charge against him; and when he is likely to be brought to trial?

Mr. Amery: I have seen a report in the Press that Bishwanath Das was arrested recently in connection with a speech made by him. I have no official information regarding the arrest which has, I presume, been effected by the Provincial Government in the discharge of its responsibilities for the maintenance of law and order.

Mr. Sorensen: Is my right hon. Friend making inquiries so that Members of the House may have information with regard to this incident?

Mr. Amery: I prefer to enlist the hon. Member's consistent support for the principle of Indian self-government.

Mr. Sorensen: Is my Question inconsistent with such support?

Oral Answers to Questions — BURMA (RECENT EVENTS, REPORT).

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for Burma whether the Governor of Burma is likely to make a full or interim report in the near future on the political and other conditions in Burma before its occupation by the Japanese army?

The Secretary of State for Burma (Mr. Amery): One of the purposes of the Governor's visit to this country is to give His Majesty's Government a first-hand account of recent events in Burma, but it is not at present intended to publish any report by him.

Mr. Sorensen: Shall we have his report in the near future, seeing the great interest that is taken in this matter and in view of the fact that certain private reports have already been made?

Mr. Amery: I cannot give any undertaking.

Mr. Shinwell: When my right hon. Friend speaks of the Governor of Burma visiting this country, does he mean that he intends to return and, if so, when?

Mr. Amery: Certainly, very shortly.

Mr. Hannah: Is not the really important matter the expulsion of the Japanese?

Mr. Storey: Will my right hon. Friend ask the B.B.C. to give the Governor of Burma facilities to talk to members of the public as he talked to Members of the House upstairs yesterday, in order to correct erroneous impressions?

Mr. Amery: I will take note of that.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE.

Malayan War Loans (Interest).

Major Cazalet: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will assume responsibility for the payment of interest on Federated Malay States and Straits Settlements War Loans, in view of the fact that the entire proceeds of these loans were placed at the disposal of His Majesty's Government for the prosecution of the war?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): This matter is receiving the most urgent consideration, and I hope very shortly to be able to make a statement. I will communicate with my hon. and gallant Friend and will ask him to put down another Question.

Major Cazalet: When considering this question, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that this is the first time in history a Crown Colony has defaulted?

Banking System.

Mr. Tinker: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the total annual cost to the State in using the Bank of England as a means of monetary exchange; and whether, as a better and more economical method, he will take over and control the whole banking system in the country.

Sir K. Wood: I am not clear what precise services of the Bank of England my hon. Friend is referring to in the first part of his Question. I assume he is aware that the profits of the Note Issue, now very substantial, enure to the Treasury. The answer to the second part of his Question is in the negative.

Mr. Tinker: Do not we deal with the Bank of England when we want some credit, and does it not cost some money to get it? Surely we are entitled to know a little more about transactions between the Government and the Bank of England? Are they secret?

Sir K. Wood: I was not clear what my hon. Friend had in mind, and I will examine it and see whether I can give him some further information.

Mr. Shinwell: Can we have an assurance that it is no part of the policy of the Government to deal with established institutions?

Mr. Tinker: If I put a Question down, will the right hon. Gentleman give me an answer?

Sir K. Wood: Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow me to communicate with him.

Sir Herbert Williams: Is it not a fact that under the Currency and Banknote Act, 1928, the whole of the profits of the Issue Department of the Bank of England are paid into the Exchequer?

Sir K. Wood: I ventured to refer to that in my answer.

Income Tax (Evacuated Children).

Sir J. Mellor: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether a deduction of Income Tax is allowed, in respect of an evacuated child, to a parent who makes no contribution to the child's maintenance?

Sir K. Wood: Yes, Sir.

Sir J. Mellor: Could not the tax saved be applied to the cost of billeting?

Sir K. Wood: No, Sir, the provisions of the Income Tax law under which a child allowance is granted do not provide for that.

Sir J. Mellor: Is not this really a most unreasonable position from the point of view of the general taxpayer?

Sir K. Wood: No, Sir, and that is the position under the law.

Fireguards (Income Tax).

Mr. Graham White: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether the provisions of food or refreshments by the occupiers of business premises coming within the terms of the Fire Prevention (Business Premises) No. 2 Order, 1941, debars the fireguards concerned from obtaining relief from Income Tax in respect of the standard subsistence allowances paid to them under that Order?

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Crookshank): The general question of the taxation treatment of cash

payments to fireguards, including allowances in respect of extra expenses necessarily incurred through doing duty as such outside working hours, was dealt with in my reply of 16th October last, of which I am sending my hon. Friend a copy. The position in a case where subsistence is provided in kind and a cash payment is made depends upon the facts of the particular case, and if my hon. Friend will give me full details of any case he may have in mind, I shall be glad to make inquiries.

Oral Answers to Questions — DAY OF NATIONAL PRAYER.

Dr. Little: asked the Prime Minister whether he will take steps to have an entire week-day set apart when our nation shall be called to humiliation and prayer; and whether he will issue instructions that on the appointed day the programme of the British Broadcasting Corporation will be of such a religious nature as to turn the thoughts of all the people to God?

The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): The question of holding a Day of National Prayer on the occasion of the third anniversary of the outbreak of war is already receiving the attention of His Majesty's Government.

Dr. Little: Will the Government keep before them that the message of a National Day of Prayer to the nation should be:
It is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you"?

Mr. Austin Hopkinson: Assuming, as the Question does, that Epicurus was wrong when he said

would it not be better to deserve victory and then to start praying for it on the principle of rending hearts instead of garments?

Oral Answers to Questions — INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE.

Mr. Daggar: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the number of policy holders; the amount of the weekly collection of industrial assurance premiums; the expenses of management and commission; and the percentage of the latter to the premiums collected for each of the years 1920 to the latest available date?

Sir K. Wood: As the answer is long and detailed, I will, with my hon. Friend' permission, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the Statement:


Year
No. of Policies in Force.
Premiums Collected.
Expenses of Management and Commission.
Percentage of Expense etc., to Premiums Collected.





Paying.
Free.
Total.








£
£



1920
…
…
Not available
35,794,099
16,538,718
46.2


1921
…
…
Not available
37,801,051
16,521,610
43.7


1922
…
…
62,416,885
2,620,838
65,037,723
38,668,405
15,763,014
40.8


1923
…
…
62,468,034
2,735,615
65,203,649
40,802,170
16,271,910
39.9


1924
…
…
64,161,097
2,845,578
67,006,675
42,262,732
15,962,979
37.8


1925
…
…
67,763,069
2,976,759
70,739,828
45,182,350
16,780,589
37.1


1926
…
…
68,840,999
3,126,837
71,967,836
45,435,252
15,825,189
34.8


1927
…
…
69,764,081
3,411,568
73,175,649
48,050,747
16,552,407
34.4


1928
…
…
70,789,455
3,654,119
74,443,574
50,519,056
17,203,318
34.1


1929
…
…
72,249,890
3,891,185
76,141,075
52,027,586
17,729,841
34.1


1930
…
…
74,076,723
5,646,648
79,723,371
54,219,461
18,397,474
33.9


1931
…
…
75,471,217
7,257,927
82,729,144
56,077,137
18,760,463
33.5


1932
…
…
75,890,509
8,729,580
84,620,089
57,332,230
19,080,418
33.3


1933
…
…
77,280,488
9,742,247
87,022,735
58,937,567
20,786,815
35.3


1934
…
…
79,125,707
10,766,295
89,892,002
61,890,896
21,341,538
34.5


1935
…
…
81,434,944
12,196,206
93,631,150
63,725,885
21,984,435
34.5


1936
…
…
83,308,120
12,917,211
96,225,331
66,389,903
22,423,174
33.8


1937
…
…
85,050,653
13,636,136
98,686,789
69,234,711
22,909,264
33.1


1938
…
…
86,724,427
14,455,117
101,179,544
71,826,167
23,871,425
33.2


1939
…
…
87,750,439
15,242,691
102,993,130
74,170,141
23,847,053
32.2


1940
…
…
88,755,153
15,964,572
104,719,725
76,750,575
24,611,211
32.1

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA (ASSISTANCE).

Commander Locker-Lampson: asked the Prime Minister whether it will be possible to spare 500 aeroplanes for the Chinese Forces; and whether every effort will be made not to forget this gallant Ally and her isolation?

Mr. Attlee: I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that His Majesty's Government will continue to do everything within their power to meet the needs of our gallant Chinese Allies. It would not, however, be in the public interest to specify either the nature of the assistance or the quantities or categories of supplies which will be furnished.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

Decisions.

Brigadier-General Clifton Brown: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that a letter from a town clerk applying for a permit for chestnut fencing for the purpose of enclosing allotments was passed through eight different offices; was answered by the Ministry of Health, after nearly seven weeks, advising that it should be sent back to the Ministry of Agriculture to whom it had been originally addressed; and,

as this is typical of the tendency of Departments to pass on instead of dealing with matters effectively, will he authorise them to make their own decisions in small but urgent matters and not to dislocate trade and production through fear of responsibility and initiative?

Sir K. Wood: I am looking into the particular case to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers, and will communicate with him as soon as possible. The importance of speedy decisions by Departments is fully appreciated, and I am sending to my hon. and gallant Friend a copy of instructions issued to all Departments on the avoidance of delays.

Brigadier-General Brown: Does not my right hon. Friend realise that the actions of these inefficient hordes of officials are destroying the soul of the nation and doing a great deal of harm to the war effort?

Sir K. Wood: I can hardly assent to that very general proposition.

Mr. De la Bère: Has the right hon. Gentleman decided how many beans make five?

Sir H. Williams: Is it not the case that no Department deals with letters expeditiously and that it takes at least a month to deal with a very simple matter?

Home Guard.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that they are many Civil servants whose duties will be of such importance during invasion that they cannot join the Home Guard on the basis that they should report within 48 hours and then be instructed by the military authorities whether to parade for military service or not; and whether he will consider allowing them to become available to the Home Guard to defend the building in which they are working if, and when, their Minister was of the opinion that it was no longer necessary or them to continue their civil duties and, preferable, that they should assist defensive operations?

Captain Crookshank: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave him on 2nd July. I am afraid that the suggestion contained in the second part of the Question is impracticable.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: Does not my right hon. Friend think that there is still very great confusion about this matter?

Captain Crookshank: I should have hoped that my previous reply would by, now have dissipated any confusion which exists.

Ministry of Works and Planning (Mr. F. C. C. Curtis).

Mr. Graham White: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works and Planning the circumstances which led to Dr. F. F. C. Curtis leaving the Ministry of Works and Planning?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works and Planning (Mr. Hicks): Mr. Curtis was never appointed to the staff of the Ministry, as there was doubt as to his ability to satisfy the conditions regarding direct employment in a Government office. Pending the settlement of this question, his services were lent by his previous employers on a repayment basis to deal with urgent work. As he has now been called to join the Services, any question of direct employment no longer arises.

Mr. White: I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment at an early date in order that this lamentable business may be considered in detail.

Oral Answers to Questions — POULTRY RATIONING.

Sir John Mellor: asked the Minister of Agriculture what steps he proposes to take to alleviate the loss which will be suffered by poultry keepers as a result of the change in the Government's policy?

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. R. S. Hudson): There has been no change in the Government's policy, which is to give priority in supplies of feeding-stuffs to dairy cows and working horses. Owing to the alteration in supplies through circumstances arising out of the war it has been necessary to reduce feeding-stuffs rations, and the reduction has been applied both to commercial and to domestic poultry keepers, as well as to owners of other livestock. I recognise and regret that hardship and loss will be inflicted on commercial and domestic poultry keepers through this reduction, but I am afraid that difficulties of this kind are inevitable under war conditions.

Sir J. Mellor: While recognising the necessity for a reduction, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether domestic poultry keepers have not been led into this predicament by previous official statements?

Mr. Hudson: No, it was always made clear while foodstuffs were available on the then existing ration that the distribution would take place as at present but that obviously the question was subject to reconsideration if supplies of foodstuffs became shorter.

Sir H. Williams: Were not the public warned when the wholemeal loaf was introduced that the inevitable result would be a fall in egg production?

Mr. Hudson: Yes, Sir. We announced that to the public.

Captain Godfrey Nicholson: Will my right hon. Friend take early steps to advise domestic poultry keepers of the comparable forms of food that can be collected, such as acorns and similar natural products?

Mr. Hudson: I am not at all sure that acorns are particularly good for hens.

Captain Nicholson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that that admittedly unprepared statement of his conflicts with the view of his Department?

Mr. Cluse: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the decreased allowance of balanced meal to be issued to domestic poultry-keepers, he will continue the past practice of alloting a larger ration of eggs to certain priority classes by allowing the holder of a child's ration book to qualify for more than the standard poultry ration for one bird?

Mr. Hudson: It is not possible for me to adopt the hon. Member's suggestion. The food waste normally resulting from feeding the priority classes is no more than that from feeding other persons, and the new arrangements associate the number of birds for which balancer meal is provided with the number of persons providing the household waste. Moreover, one hen should, with reasonably efficient management, provide as many eggs as are likely to be available to the priority classes on their egg registrations.

Sir Waldron Smithers: Could not many of these difficulties be overcome by closer co-operation between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Food?

Sir Joseph Lamb: Will the Minister consider the desirability of instructions being given to allotment holders to see whether they cannot produce on their allotment something which would assist them to maintain their poultry?

Mr. Hudson: I think it will be necessary for the ordinary householders, in order to be able to keep more than one or two hens, to call upon supplies from their gardens or allotments.

Mr. Dugdale: Does not the Minister recognise that while eggs are a luxury for grown-up persons, they are a necessity for small children?

Mr. Hudson: Yes, Sir, but an ordinary priority child is at present entitled to about 150 to 160 eggs a year on its ration book, four times the ordinary adult ration, and that is the number of eggs that can reasonably be expected from one hen if properly looked after.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRICKS (TRANSPORT).

Mr. Lipson: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works and Planning why Fletton bricks are being brought in very large number into the Cheltenham area by road, in spite of

the urgent need to economise in the use of tyres and petrol, when there are sufficient bricks available in Cheltenham brickworks to meet all local requirements?

Mr. Hicks: The carriage of bricks by rail or road is carefully controlled. It is not permissible to carry bricks without special permit for a greater distance than 75 miles by rail. With regard to road transport, the distance ordinarily permitted is 50 miles. The Fletton bricks in question are made within this radius. It is the policy of my Ministry to adjust output of bricks over the country in accordance with the estimated demand. The output of Fletton bricks, though economical in manufacture in use of man-power and coal, has been restricted to a greater extent than the brick industry generally; and it is essential in the national interest to maintain the Fletton industry as well as the rest of the brick industry. According, to my last returns, the Cheltenham brickworks were selling their full output.

Mr. Lipson: Is my hon. Friend aware that I have sent him correspondence which shows that the Cheltenham Brickworks, established in the reign of King Alfred, are still going strong and could produce all the bricks that are required, and why is it necessary to bring bricks from even 50 miles away?

Mr. Hicks: While thanking my hon. Friend for the information he has been kind enough to send me, I have a table here, which I can show him, which shows that his statement does not correspond exactly with the information which we have. I will show it to him afterwards at the back of the Chair.

Oral Answers to Questions — MOTION OF CENSURE (ENEMY COMMENTS).

Major Petherick: asked the Minister of Information whether he will consider publishing in pamphlet form, or through the Press, verbatim comments of the German and Italian broadcasting services on the debates on the Motion of Censure in this House on 1st and 2nd July?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Information (Mr. Thurtle): No, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — PETROL (BY-ELECTIONS).

Mr. Mander: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power the amount of petrol now being allowed at by-elections for the purpose of conveying voters to the poll?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): The amount of petrol to be allowed to candidates at a by-election for campaigning and polling requirements together, is assessed by this Department according to the nature of the constituency and the public transport available.

Mr. Mander: Does not my hon. Friend think that under present circumstances it would be advisable to stop the use of petrol for the purpose of bringing voters to the poll in order that the advantages possessed by wealth in this matter may no longer prevail?

Mr. Lloyd: The amount of petrol used in these cases is small.

Colonel Arthur Evans: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that the possession of wealth has no relation at all to the availability of petrol?

Oral Answers to Questions — STUKAS, WESTERN DESERT.

Sir Stanley Reed: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he has official information of the number of German dive-bombers destroyed during the recent operations in Egypt?

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Air (Captain Harold Balfour): An analysis of communiqués issued from Middle East Headquarters shows that since 23rd May the number of Stukas destroyed in combat in the operations in the Western Desert is 59.

Sir S. Reed: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend take steps to give wide publicity to that statement, for the guidance of those intelligent or unintelligent amateurs who have been trying to direct our Imperial strategy?

Captain Balfour: I hope that the hon. Member's Question will have the wide publicity which it deserves.

Sir H. Williams: Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say how many of these

dive-bombers were destroyed on the occasion when the British Forces were defeated?

Captain Balfour: Sir, the British Forces are never defeated. They sometimes get setbacks.

Sir H. Williams: Well, on the occasion of setbacks can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say how many were destroyed?

Captain Balfour: Not without notice.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE.

Women's Auxiliary Air Force (Mrs. L. W. Norton).

Mr. W. Brown: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is now in a position to reply to representations made to him for the release of Mrs. L. W. Norton from the Women's Auxiliary Air Force?

Captain Balfour: The circumstances of this case have been carefully considered, and I regret that they do not provide adequate grounds for granting the airwoman her discharge. Arrangements have, however, been made to post her at an early date to a unit in the neighbourhood of her husband's home town.

Fighter Aircraft (Army Co-operation).

Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware that it has been officially announced that the primary task of our fighter aircraft is to engage the enemy in the air and that low-flying attack on enemy columns is only a secondary role; whether this policy is now adopted in all theatres of war; and what steps are taken to ensure effective support to the Army in attacking or defending itself against enemy forces and armoured vehicles on the ground?

Captain Balfour: It is common doctrine agreed between the Air Staff and the General Staff that the primary role of fighter aircraft in support of the Army in any theatre of war is to secure that degree of air superiority without which continuous and effective attack on enemy columns is impossible. With regard to the last part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the already published details of R.A.F. activity in the present campaign in Libya.

Mr. Stewart: Is it not clear from our experience in Libya that until the Air


Force regard it as its primary rôle, or at any rate equal with its primary rôle, to destroy armoured vehicles on the ground, as it has been doing so magnificently in the last 10 days, we are not going to win battles?

Captain Balfour: I do not think I can add to what the Prime Minister said in the House as to the directions given some time ago on this particular matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

Voluntary Aid Detachments.

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will state the present position with regard to the proposal that Voluntary Aid Detachment and Red Cross nurses should become Auxiliary Territorial Service nursing orderlies; and whether he will state the reasons for the change?

The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Sandys): This question is under discussion between the War Office and the voluntary organisations concerned. My right hon. Friend hopes shortly to be in a position to make a statement.

Mr. Mander: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the very strong feeling throughout the country on this subject, and will he bear that in mind in coming to any decision?

Mr. Lipson: Will my hon. Friend take note of the fact that the uncertainty about the position is having a very disturbing effect, and will he see that a decision is arrived at very soon?

Mr. Sandys: Yes, Sir, discussions are going on at this moment.

Salvaged Shell Cases.

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in connection with the collection of old shells for salvage, he will take the necessary steps to ensure that a competent military officer is available to certify that the shells are safe, in view of the fact that unless this is done the factories refuse to receive them, resulting in a substantial loss of salvage for the war effort?

Mr. Sandys: Salvaged shell cases are sent to Ministry of Supply centres only, and I have not heard that these have ever

refused a consignment. It is already laid down that the commanding officers of units shall certify that consignments are free from explosives before they send them to these centres.

Mr. De la Bère: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that cases have taken place in my own division? Has he not received a letter from me on the subject, and will he be kind enough to get one of his staff to get on the telephone and to see that no further delay takes place?

Mr. Sandys: The trouble is not getting officers to certify but that sometimes they certify wrongly. Mistakes are bound to occur sometimes.

Tanks, Libya.

Mr. Stokes: asked the Secretary of State for War whether the German Mark IV tank was used in Libya in November, 1941; whether it mounted a 77 millimetre gun; and, if so, what was the weight of the projectile fired by that gun?

Mr. Sandys: The German Mark IV tank was used in Libya in November, 1941. The main armament of this tank is a 75 millimetre gun. This gun fires different types of projectile, varying in weight between 12 and 14 pounds.

Mr. Stokes: I put this Question down to the Prime Minister. May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether, supposing he found himself in action in a tank with a 2-pounder gun of effective range of 600 yards, against a German tank firing a 15-pound projectile with an effective range of 2,000 yards, he would consider his equipment adequate, ample or equal?

Mr. Sandys: Evidently my hon. Friend has views himself on the subject.

Mr. Stokes: asked the Secretary of State for War what tank used by the British Army in Libya in November, 1941, mounted a 15-pounder gun?

Mr. Sandys: I regret that I should not be justified in giving any information about the design and armament of British tanks beyond that which was promised to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) in reply to a Question on 7th July.

Mr. Stokes: Is it not a fact that no tank with a larger gun than the 2-pounder was in action in Libya in November?

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL WAR EFFORT.

Women (Records).

Miss Rathabone (for Mrs. Tate): asked the Minister of Labour whether, in order to ascertain facts concerning the family responsibilities and financial commitments of employed women, he will give an assurance that information obtained during the interviewing of women for purposes of the call-up shall be recorded in such a manner as to be subsequently available?

Mr. Bevin: A record is made and retained at local offices for future confidential reference of such brief details of domestic circumstances as are relevant to the availability of a woman for employment or for transfer to other employment.

Miss Rathbone: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that these records of interviews both with men and women will be valuable in future for statistical use, in giving an indication of the available manpower and woman-power in the country, and that therefore they should be very carefully preserved?

Mr. Bevin: There is great doubt about it. We have guaranteed to the women that everything they tell us shall be confidential. If once they thought that we were keeping their past records for future use, it might cause——

Miss Rathbone: Is it not possible to keep strictly personal matters confidential but to keep a record for purely statistical purposes?

Mr. Bevin: I did not know that women's problems could be reduced to a purely statistical form.

Holidays (Service Men's Wives).

Mr. John Dugdale: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will instruct employers to arrange that as far as practicable the holiday periods of wives of men serving in the Forces shall correspond with their husbands' leave?

Mr. Bevin: I am sending to my hon. Friend a copy of a Press notice on the subject issued last March.

Mr. Dugdale: Is the Minister satisfied that this matter has received adequate publicity as many firms are unaware of it?

Mr. Bevin: Every firm has had a copy of the notice, and so has every personnel

manager, shop steward, union and Member of Parliament.

Man-Power.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: asked the Minister of Labour whether there is any machinery which enables the Director-General of Man-Power to ascertain whether the most up-to-date and effective technical methods are being followed in all important war activities, so that no man-power is avoidably wasted; and what arrangements exist for liaison between him, the Engineering Advisory Committee and other technical bodies for this purpose?

Mr. Bevin: The responsibility for securing the use of the best technical methods in production rests primarily with the Supply Departments, and only these Departments can effectively apply the advice of the Engineering Advisory Committee to which my hon. Friend refers, and other similar committees. My Department has a staff of inspectors who are constantly investigating the methods of employing labour, and any apparent failure to make the most effective use of labour is at once taken up with the employer, and, if necessary, with the Department immediately concerned.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether he would consider the setting-up of some permanent body to give this technical advice?

Mr. Bevin: That is purely a matter for the Minister of Production. My duty in this matter is strictly laid down in the Act of Parliament.

COAL (REGIONAL CONTROLLERS).

The Minister of Fuel and Power (Major Lloyd George): By leave of the House, I would like to inform hon. Members of the progress I have made to date in regard to the regional machinery of my Department as outlined in the recent White Paper on Coal. I have decided that under the regional organisation the country will be divided into eight coal-producing regions and four non-coal-producing regions. For each region I am appointing a Regional Controller, who will be my representative in his region.

The eight coal-producing regions will be as follow:—

(1) Scotland.
(2) Northumberland and Cumberland.
(3) Durham.
(4) Lancashire, Cheshire and North Wales.
(5) South and West Yorkshire.
(6) Nottinghamshire, North and South Derbyshire and Leicestershire.
(7) North and South Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Cannock Chase and Shropshire.
(8) South Wales, Forest of Dean, Somerset and Bristol.

The Kent coalfield will be controlled direct from the headquarters of the Ministry.

The non-producing regions will broadly correspond with the Civil Defence Regions and will be known as the London and South-Eastern Region, the Southern Region, the South-Western Region and the Eastern Region.

I am able to give the House the names of the Regional Controllers of five of the coal-producing regions. These are:

For the Scottish Region, Lord Traprain, Chairman of the Scottish Special Housing Association.

For the South and West Yorkshire Region, Dr. H. S. Houldsworth, K.C., who has been acting as Regional Fuel and Power Controller under the Board of Trade for this area, and as Joint Coal Supplies Officer for the Midland (Amalgamated) District.

For the Lancashire, Cheshire and North Wales Region, my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. Gordon Macdonald), who will take up this new appointment as soon as the necessary arrangements have been made.

For the Notts and Derby Region, Mr. F. Raymond Evershed, K.C., who has been Chairman of the Central Price Regulation Committee since its inception.

For the West Midlands Region, Alderman J. A. Webb, who is Area Secretary, Lancashire and Cheshire district of the Transport and General Workers' Union.

Mr. Cluse: Is the Minister aware that some of that information has already been published in the Press?

Major Lloyd George: I did see some in this morning's papers; I have no idea how it got there, and I am making inquiries.

Sir J. Lamb: Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman give any indication as to how soon he will be able to give the other names?

Major Lloyd George: I hope, very shortly.

Mr. Tinker: How many of the people referred to are closely connected with the coal industry, with the exception of the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. G. Macdonald)?

Major Lloyd George: One who has had some connection with the coal industry hitherto, of course, is Dr. H. S. Houldsworth.

Mr. Lipson: Will all these regional representatives receive instructions to keep in close touch and co-operation with the regional representatives of the Ministry of Production in their respective areas?

Mr. G. Griffiths: Is not the representative for South and West Yorkshire directly interested in the coal industry from the owners' side?

Major Lloyd George: No, Sir. He was connected with the selling scheme before the war, but he has naturally severed all connection with it now.

Mr. Mander: Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman state what the salaries of these gentlemen are to be?

Major Lloyd George: Their salaries are to be £2,000 a year.

Major Petherick: Will the hon. Member for Ince be able to continue to hold his seat in this House?

Major Lloyd George: No, Sir. The hon. Member for Ince will not do that. My hon. Friend will observe that I said that he will take up his appointment as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made.

Mr. A. Bevan: Will the cost of the salaries fall upon the Exchequer and not upon the industry?

Major Lloyd George: Yes, Sir.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. Arthur Greenwood: May I ask the Leader of the House the Business for the next series of Sitting Days?

The Lord Privy Seal (Sir Stafford Cripps): The Business for the next series of Sitting Days will be as follows:
First and Second Sitting Days—Supply, Committee (13th and 14th Allotted Days). A Debate will take place on Production.
Third Sitting Day—Supply, Committee (15th Allotted Day). The Adjournment of the House will be moved, and a Debate will take place on the shipping situation.
With regard to the Debate on the Third Sitting Day, on shipping, the Government wish to take this opportunity of putting before hon. Members a frank review of the shipping situation, both from the point of view of losses and of construction. In order that this may be done with safety to the people of this island and to our very gallant merchant seamen, it will be necessary to hold the Session in secret. The House will realise when the position is explained to them in Secret Session, as it will be, that this decision has not been arrived at because the Government desire to conceal unpleasant facts, or because they are afraid of their ability to see through the difficulties, which, though grave, are certainly surmountable. The sole factor actuating the Government in their decision is their paramount duty to protect the food and the lives of our people, and of our seamen in particular. Any Debate in which rumours or opinions were expressed upon the shipping situation and in which the Government were unable, for reasons of security, to state the true facts, would be misleading and damaging, and would impede rather than assist the efforts which are being made both to foil the enemy attacks and to make good and more than good the losses that are being suffered. I feel certain that the House will agree that, however valuable publicity may be for our Debates, it must not be allowed in so vital a matter to endanger the lives of our people, especially of those who are already running such constant and grave risks as our merchant seamen.

Mr. Greenwood: Does the Leader of the House appreciate the fact that all hon. Members who have been interested in this have assumed that the Debate was to be

in public? While we should all be in sympathy with the considerations which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has put before the House about giving comfort and information to the enemy, I think it was the feeling of all Members on all sides of the House that the public are perhaps not sufficiently seized of the gravity of the situation, and it was desired rather to reinforce them than to force the House to disclose facts which ought not properly to be disclosed. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in view of what I am sure is a widespread feeling in the House for a public Debate, the Cabinet will reconsider the matter?

Sir S. Cripps: The Cabinet have naturally given this matter very deep and prolonged consideration, and as a result of that they have come to the conclusion which I have announced. They feel impelled, after considering the matter, to allow their action to be ruled by considerations of safety and security, and much though they deprecate the necessity of a Secret Session, they feel that in this matter the House will think that they have come to the right decision.

Sir P. Harris: While appreciating the very sound argument put forward for a Secret Session, will it not be possible to have part of the Session in public, so that at any rate such information as could be given to the public could be stated openly?

Sir S. Cripps: That matter has been considered very carefully by the Cabinet. The difficulty is that in any such Debate any Member can speak on any subject which is in Order. Therefore, it may be that certain statements are made in the course of the Debate in public which cannot be answered in public by the Government, which would give a false impression both here and abroad as to the true situation.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the Leader of the House aware that if a Debate is held in secret, rumours will still be current about the position, and that nothing which transpires in the course of the Secret Debate can suppress those rumours, as the public will still be uninformed on the subject? Moreover, is he aware that Lord Woolton the other day asked the public to face squarely the facts of the shipping situation? How is it possible to face those facts squarely unless some information is provided by the Government? Does he


also appreciate that while the question of the publication of shipping losses is solely a matter for the Government to decide, much value will accrue from having a Debate on the general shipping position in public, so that the whole question can be thoroughly ventilated?

Sir S. Cripps: I quite appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point of view; it is one which we have very carefully considered. So far as the question of uninformed public opinion is concerned, it would be impossible to right that situation except by giving the information, and the Government have come to the conclusion that that is a thing which cannot be done in view of the matters I have mentioned. As regards the question of not publishing the shipping losses, but publishing the discussion on other matters relating to them, I would point out that there are, equally, matters with regard to construction and what is being done to counteract these losses that must be kept secret as well, and it is impossible to allow a partial picture to be given which would in itself be gravely misleading as to the nature of the situation at the present time.

Mr. Shinwell: Why were these considerations not present in the mind of the Government yesterday afternoon, when they certainly conveyed the information that the Debate on shipping was to be in public? At what stage did they reach the conclusion—will the right hon. and learned Gentleman be quite frank about the matter—that the Debate was not to be in public but was to be held in secret; and why did they come to that later decision?

Sir S. Cripps: The decision was arrived at last night, and the reason was that it had been assumed that, though the Government might give no details and no figures, it would be possible to have a Debate ranging over a number of subjects which would not do any harm. It was then ascertained that other questions might be raised in the course of the Debate and that within the Rules of Order it would be impossible to prevent any Member who wished to do so from getting up and speaking on those matters. In view of that consideration, and the danger of such matters being mentioned in the course of the Debate, the Government felt it wiser to take the course which has now been adopted.

Mr. Shinwell: Why cannot the Government trust the House of Commons for a change?

Mr. A. Bevan: It must be obvious to the House that if the Government wish to have a matter of this sort discussed insecret, the House must accept the Government's point of view. On the other hand, I think the Government realise that they will be watched very carefully on this occasion and that if we are to go into Secret Session upon this matter, we shall expect to have from the Government a frank and open statement upon it. On more than one occasion Secret Sessions have been abused by the Government, and the things which have been told to the House at such Sessions could quite easily have been told in public. May I put a second point? Is there not in this country a feeling that the Americans are much franker about the shipping situation than we are and that American newspapers publish figures of American shipping losses in a much fuller way——

An Hon. Member: Very inaccurately.

Mr. Bevan: Of course, I have not got the information of the hon. Member who interrupts. He may know what the actual shipping losses are, but——

Sir S. Cripps: May I intervene to suggest to the hon. Member that it would be easier to deal with the matter which he is mentioning when we are able to explain the position in Secret Session?

Mr. Bevan: May I then suggest that at the end of the coming Secret Session on this matter Mr. Speaker should be authorised to issue a much fuller report than those which have been issued previously in regard to matters of this sort, so that whatever information can be given to the country, should be given to the country, having regard to the psychological value of that information?

Sir S. Cripps: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for the suggestion and certainly will consider carefully whether, as a result of this Session, some further and fuller statement can be made to the public which expresses the general feeling of the House.

Mr. Graham White: Whether information concerning shipping losses is given to the House or is withheld, will my right hon. and learned Friend see that the


Government give the House an assurance that measures appropriate to the gravity of the situation have been taken and will be maintained?

Sir S. Cripps: I can give that assurance at this moment, and that matter will also be dealt with in the course of the Debate.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: May I ask a question on another topic? In view of the supreme and growing importance of air power in the conduct of the war, and the inadequate attention given to that matter during the recent Debate, in which the Secretary of State for Air was not able to take part, and also in view of the continued public interest in the general strategy of the air arm, would my right hon. and learned Friend consider arranging for a Debate on that subject before the Summer Recess?

Sir S. Cripps: We are always prepared, naturally, to consider any matter which will suit the convenience of the House. If my hon. Friend will take the usual steps through the usual channels, his suggestion will be considered.

Sir H. Williams: May I raise a different issue? Will the Government consider discontinuing the practice of describing our days of meeting as First, Second and Third Sitting Days and restore the actual days of the week? Any intelligent person in Berlin can ascertain without any difficulty the days when we are to meet. It can be done in many ways. The simplest way is for a person to go into a certain public office to-morrow and buy, as he will be able to buy without challenge, a document which will have printed in it the day on which we are next going to meet. Surely it is a sheer farce to continue wasting time and effort in the silly way we have been doing for the last two years?

Sir S. Cripps: I do not think it has wasted a great deal of time or effort, but we will certainly consider whether we cannot restore the days of the week, instead of following the present practice of referring to the First, Second and Third Sitting Days.

Colonel Arthur Evans: May I ask my right hon. and learned Friend whether he will consider the necessity of this House being fully informed on the American reactions

to the shipping situation and whether we are to have the benefit of a speech from the hon. Member for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter)?

Sir S. Cripps: That is anticipated.

Mr. Lipson: On the question of the Government's decision to hold the shipping Debate in Secret Session, may I ask the Leader of the House whether steps will be taken by the Government to bring home to the people of this country the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood), namely, the gravity of the shipping situation?

Sir S. Cripps: I think I indicated in reply to the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) that we would certainly consider the suggestion—I think the valuable suggestion—he made of a method by which that could be done.

Orders of the Day — ALLIED POWERS (WAR SERVICE) [MONEY].

Resolution reported:
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision as to the liability to war service of the nationals of Allied Powers it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by the Minister of Labour and National Service, a Secretary of State or any other Minister of the Crown in consequence of the passing of the said Act.

Resolution agreed to.

Orders of the Day — ALLIED POWERS (WAR SERVICE) BILL.

Considered in Committee.

[Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]

CLAUSE 1.—(Liability to service of nationals of Allied Powers.)

Mr. Pritt: I beg to move in page 1, line II, to leave out "two months," and to insert "one month."
The point raised by this Amendment is not very important, in itself, but it will enable me to make certain observations which have a bearing on one or two of the other Amendments on the Paper, and I may be forgiven if I explain its purpose in some detail. The main purpose of the Bill is to make sure that nationals of Allied Powers shall serve, either in their own Forces or in the Forces of the British Government. We thus have the comfortable feeling that nothing we can do under this Bill is likely to diminish the total war effort, at any rate as far as numbers are concerned. Indeed, we think that most of the Amendments which are designed to allow people who do not want to serve in their own national Forces but who do want to serve in the British Forces to do so, will actually much improve matters, and the reason why we suggest one month in this case instead of two is this: There has been a continuous and not altogether pleasant process going on for a very long time by which reluctant citizens of various Allied Powers have been forced into the Armed Forces of their respective countries.
When the matter came up on the Allied Forces Bill in 1940 various Members exposed the practice that was then being carried on by one or two of the Allied Governments of threatening their citizens in this country with penal sanctions if they did not join their Forces. It was stated then that this was an utterly illegal and unjustified action, and the Under-Secretary of State in charge of that Debate, now to be described as the hon. Member for Altrincham (Sir E. Grigg), made it plain that they had no right whatever to do anything of the sort, and it was indicated with a moderate degree of clarity that they would be told that they must not. I have in my possession a series of similar documents, some dated as recently as 20th June this year, in which

that sort of threat is being held out to the nationals of certain Allied Powers. In view of the fact that a surprising number of those concerned really do not know their rights, and in view of the fact that numbers of them have been pressed into the Forces in that way, this particular Amendment, which is, as I say, a very small one in itself, is simply brought forward with this view: We feel that such pressure has gone on long enough. The object of this Bill is to give two further months for intensive more or less legitimate pressure of that kind. My suggestion is simply that one month of urging is surely quite enough, and the net advantage of the Amendment, though I do not pretend that it is my primary motive in moving it, is that all the people involved, who, I daresay, are in total a substantial number, but undoubtedly a number, will have to be in some military force, after a very considerable delay for some of them, in one month instead of two.

Mr. Lawson: I am very pleased to hear my hon. and learned Friend say, as I understood him to say, that the principle of the Bill was generally accepted.

Mr. Pritt: I think so, on the Second Reading.

Mr. Lawson: The Government from the first has had, of course, a very difficult job in dealing with this matter. They found a very good method, I thought, of applying what is known as the principle of the Visiting Forces Act. Have the Government any information that there has been considerable complaints about this pressure to bring within their respective Forces the nationals of Governments centred in this country. If it is so—and some very serious letters have been reaching various Members—I think that representations ought to be made to these various Governments upon this matter. In the early stages of the war the Government were reluctant to apply conscription to the aliens in this country, and there was considerable remark upon that at the time, but I do not think that my hon. Friends who put down this Amendment were under the impression that a month would make very much difference, and I should say that this is rather an opportunity of drawing attention to this particular problem, although two months do


give a month longer for the Governments to carry on this kind of conduct if any of them are doing so, and I think it is only one or two which are involved. I hope that the Government will give some attention to the matter. It is a very small thing which is asked as an Amendment, but it is an important thing from the point of view of certain people. If the Government could make representations on this matter, I think that these would be rather more important than the Amendment itself.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. McCorquodale): I am afraid we must resist this Amendment on practical grounds. I note what the hon. and learned Gentleman says about raising this Amendment rather as a peg——

Mr. Pritt: No, I did not say that. I said I would use the Amendment as a peg on which to hang a longer speech than the Amendment itself might require. I regard the Amendment not in the least as a peg in itself. It is one I desire to have.

Mr. McCorquodale: I am very much obliged to my hon. and learned Friend. Perhaps I may first explain the practical reasons why we are unable to accept the Amendment. I can do that best perhaps by enumerating one or two of the steps which will have to be taken by an Allied Government before a national joins its Forces. It is necessary to decide which of their nationals shall be called up, which should receive an exemption certificate under Clause 1 (2, a) and also exclude, in consultation with us at the Ministry of Labour and National Service, those we do not wish to be called up owing to the importance of their civilian work. They have then to arrange for medical examination, and not all of them have such resources in the medical world as we naturally have. They have to arrange where they will allocate the men in their respective Forces, and finally, when they issue posting notices, they must allow men a reasonable time in which to wind up their affairs and report in person for service. I do not think that we can possibly expect all that to be carried out in the space of under two months. An historical note on that, which it is interesting to remember, is that two months was the period of the Anglo-United States Military Service Convention, which was to some extent the father of this sort of proposal.
With regard to the wider point raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman and also by the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson), I think that the Debates on this Allied Forces Bill will help very considerably to inform Allied nationals of their rights under the laws of this land and under this Bill, and therefore in itself that will have a good effect. I have no personal information to give the Committee on such matters as the hon. and learned Gentleman has mentioned as occurring at the present time. There have been Debates in this House in the past on this matter, but I have no doubt that these things can be, and will be, suitably looked after in the future.

Mr. Pritt: I would like to say a few words about this. The hon. Gentleman has enumerated a number of things which the Allied Powers must do before they get their people into their Armed Forces. Would he like to tell me now that there is one single Polish citizen in this country in respect of whom practically the whole of these things were not done 18 months ago? Certainly from a number of cases that have come to me I venture very seriously to doubt whether there is a single Polish citizen who has not gone through these processes long ago. If the hon. Gentleman has not got information as to the ways in which this is going on, let me give him this hint. If he will ask another Minister of the Crown—I need not mention his name—about the information that he gave me yesterday of the wholesale illegal conscription of certain nationals into a certain kind of force, he will learn something very quickly. With regard to the point that these Debates will give sufficient publicity to let people know their rights, the Allied Forces Bill was fully debated at a time when the paper supply was at least five times as liberal as it is now, and the hon. Member for Altrincham (Sir E. Grigg) said half a dozen times that this was all entirely illegal. This has gone on ever since, and I have in my possession a translation of a document which was translated on 20th June, 1942.

Mr. Lawson: I know that there was one Government in the main involved in this, and I do not want to mention any names in the matter. I understand very great pressure has been brought to bear upon certain people. It is not merely a question of conscription into our own Forces.


There are difficulties which we ourselves do not experience at all. When they get hold of these men they are taken into the particular armies, and their lives are not at all pleasant. No soldier's life is pleasant until he gets over the first period. All kinds of questions are involved. We in this country make provision for conscientious objectors and have all kinds of disciplinary arrangements and rights for the soldiers which, I am pleased to say, are generally operative in full. So much is this so that our own soldiers say that with regard to disciplinary matters, when they have to be tried they would far sooner be tried by courtmartial than by the ordinary civil law. But these men—foreigners in our own land—are pretty helpless in these matters. I am sorry that the Government will not accept the Amendment, but I wonder whether representations cannot be made to the particular Governments on the strength of the information that is at hand. These men are domiciled in this country. Public opinion here would not like to know some of the things that are said to be taking place. I do not place much value upon the fact that because Debates take place in this House the ordinary citizens know all about them. They get the general trend of the Debates, but this matter involves very detailed matters. It is not possible for the average citizen perhaps to have read the OFFICIAL REPORT in order to draw these very fine distinctions or to have the necessary detailed information. Would it be possible to make representations to particular Governments as to what is taking place? Is it the final decision of the Government not to accept this Amendment?

Mr. McCorquodale: Yes, for practical reasons.

Mr. Pritt: The Minister says that it is for practical reasons. I asked a question about it, and I believe that the answer was that there are no such reasons.

Mr. McCorquodale: With regard to the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for North Hammersmith (Mr. Pritt) that the Polish Government have the necessary information to enable them speedily to proceed with the enrolment of their nationals, I am informed that this may be substantially true in their case, but that it does not hold good with regard to all the other Governments involved.

Mr. Pritt: I know the delicacy with which you have to handle foreign Governments. It is rather a question of manners, and therefore I do not know very much about it, but can the Minister, at any rate, consider the possibility of circulating to the citizens involved, who are on the register here under the Aliens Act, a fair statement of their rights? I want these people to serve. The only thing I do not want to happen is that people who are willing to serve in the British Army, and who perhaps have never been in the foreign countries of which they are nationals, and who, very often, have volunteered for the British Army several times already, should not be taken into these other Forces for want of the clear knowledge that they have nothing to say but "No, I will hot."

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Richard Law): I think that I can help my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Law-son) to get rid of some of his misgivings on this point by explaining, perhaps a little more fully, the exact position. The hon. and learned Member for North Hammersmith (Mr. Pritt) rather gave the impression to the Committee that there was some wholesale shanghai-ing of people into the Allied Forces. That is not really the case. I have come across cases in the past where undue pressure was exercised on certain individuals, and that was done very largely as a result of a misunderstanding of the position on the part of the Government concerned. In almost every case which has been brought to my notice, when an approach has been made to the Allied Government they have met us on the point, and the difficulty has been avoided. The legal position, as I understand it, is that these Allied Governments under their own law have a perfect right, and always had, to call up their nationals who were living in foreign countries, and I do not think that we have ever disputed that right. I do not think that my hon. Friend the then Under-Secretary of State for War ever gave a pledge that the Allied Governments should be prohibited from calling up their nationals in a purely formal sense, but he said that they should not be able to enforce their call-up notice. That was his pledge, and in the main that pledge has been kept.
I do not think that either the Committee or the Government would wish to deprive the Allied Governments, which are sovereign Governments, of their right to call up their own nationals into their own Armies. We would all admit that they have that right, and I do not think that this Bill is intended to deprive them of that right. The position is simply that the Governments can call up their men. If they do not accept the call-up, then they are called to the British Forces under the National Service Acts. As they have that right to call upon them, I should have thought that it was essential to give not only the Allied Governments, but the Allied nationals a reasonable time in which to make their plans on both sides—the Allied Governments to make arrangements for medical examination and so on, and the nationals to make up their minds in the light of their own circumstances. For that reason, I would submit to my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street and the Committee that two months is not an unreasonably long time and that one month might well prove to be an unreasonably short time.

Mr. Pritt: Apparently the Government want to stand firm, but we have had a very useful discussion, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Pritt: I beg to move, in page 1, line 11, to leave out "a member of" and to insert "serving in."
This is a totally different point, but as it is a short one I need not take more than a few minutes over it. As the Subsection stands at present, at the expiration of two months, in order to get a man into the British Forces we have to see that he is not a member of the naval, military or air forces of the Power of which he is a national. I suggest that there are three fairly substantial objections to making that particular test. The first is that it is very difficult indeed to decide in any particular contested case whether a man is in the Forces or not. In a case with which I had to deal it took several days to decide at considerable expense because there was a question partly of English Taw and partly of foreign law and disputed fact. The next objection is that this Bill seeks to deal with the question of what and who is not a member, and there will be the danger of "a member" having

two possible meanings in different portions of the Act, which, to say the least, is undesirable and leads to confusion.
The third objection is this. The whole object of the Bill is to make people serve, and the whole object of people like myself who have had a good many complaints brought to their notice, is to try and make sure that they will serve where they get decent treatment, namely, in our own Army and not in the Armies of Powers which, in some cases, have a very bad record indeed for treating national minorities badly. If you intend to use the phrase "a member of," you will catch by this means everybody who either under pressure or in ignorance may have gone into these Forces during the past 18 months or two years, who have found conditions intolerable and who—one must not say deserted, because it may not be desertion, as they were illegally called up—have walked out and resumed their status as civilians, but who are now perfectly willing to serve in the British Army. If the words "a member of" remain in the Bill, there is danger in saying to these people, "We have just been passing an Act through Parliament to make sure that you will serve and that you shall have the option of serving in the British Army, but, unfortunately, we have left in the Bill the words 'a member of,' and the Government now insist that you are technically a member of your Force." The whole object, as I understand it, is to say, "Here are two months. At the end of that time you either have to be in the Force of your own nationality, or we will fetch you along to ours. If you are at that time, that will be enough." If we leave in the words "a member of," we shall have a difficult question to decide. It seems to me that the practical test would be "serving in."

Miss Rathbone: I would like to support the Amendment, because I have come across a good many cases which come in the category referred to by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Hammersmith (Mr. Pritt) where men were brought in by pressure which they imagined to be legal pressure—without the assistance of the British authorities—and somehow or other got out. One is afraid that opportunity will be taken to force them back. May I give an instance? There was a number of Jewish students in


the third year of their engineering training at a British university, and great pressure was being brought to bear upon them to enter the Polish Army, in which there was an anti-Semitic attitude. They were reluctant to enter because they wanted to finish their training as engineers, and they said, "We know the Allied Government cannot force us in, but we are afraid that if a Bill is passed giving the right to conscript us, we shall be charged as deserters." Supposing these men went in under that kind of pressure and came out, is it possible for the Polish Army to insist on retaining authority? Under this Act, or at any rate that part of it which applies to people who do not enlist in the Allied Army, they would have been exempt as third-year students at a university course.

Earl Winterton: As one who has an unofficial connection with the Polish Army, I wish to protest strongly against the statement made by the hon. Lady that there was some anti-Jewish attitude in the Polish Army.

Miss Rathbone: I made that assertion without qualification, and I think that those who have followed the facts know that it is so. I am sure that it is not the attitude of some, or of General Sikorski, who has protested against it, and that it is not the attitude in many units, but there is grievous anti-Semitism in some units of the Polish Army, and bullying of men.

Earl Winterton: I do not agree with a word of the hon. Lady's statement, which I regret she has seen fit to make in the House. The Polish Army is doing magnificent work in a certain part of the country, and I think it shows a great lack of responsibility on the hon. Lady's part, even if it is true, to make such a statement, which is calculated to do great mischief not only between ourselves and the Polish Army but between ourselves and General Sikorski as well.

Mr. Pritt: I think it shows a great lack of responsibility on the part of the Noble Lord. He does not know any more about it than the hon. Lady. She has plenty of evidence of it, and so have I. I was bringing it before the Foreign Office when the Polish Army were fighting in France. Unfortunately, it is quite easy to fight gallantly and ill-treat people at the same time, although it may not be the same

people doing it. I have had, and have sifted, from time to time, plenty of evidence of ill-treatment of Jews in the Polish Army. The Noble Lord might like to read some of the writings of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), to see how the Polish Army treat their Jewish nationals.

Earl Winterton: I do not regard the hon. and learned Member as an authority on anti-Semitism, or on other questions.

Mr. Pritt: We have the same opinion about each other.

Mr. McCorquodale: I rather deprecate this bandying-about of accusations against the Polish Army.

Mr. Pritt: Perhaps the hon. Member will do Members of this House the courtesy of believing that they have a few brains and some sense of responsibility, and that they do not make charges unless they know them to be right.

Miss Rathbone: I must protest against the assumption that we are making charges against the Polish Army generally, or against the high command. We are not: we are making charges against certain units of the Polish Army, and against members of the rank and file.

Mr. McCorquodale: I do not think that I ever suggested that the hon. and learned Member had no brains. I should be very foolish if I did. I cannot accept this Amendment. There are in some of the National Forces in this country, just as in our own, a substantial number of members who are temporarily released for civil work, but who are under obligation to be called up again in an emergency, or when the civil work they are doing comes to an end. Under this Amendment, their position will be quite in the air. They would not only be members of the Allied Forces, but they would be liable to serve in the British Forces as well. With regard to the wider point which the hon. and learned Gentleman put, I think it would be better to discuss that on Clause 5.

Mr. Pritt: The difficulty about that is that no doubt the Government will refuse to budge an inch on Clause 5, and then we shall have lost the opportunity of penetrating the sympathies or other exterior arrangements of the Government on Clause 1. I should have thought that the


description which the Parliamentary Secretary has given, of people who are serving in the Army, but who are temporarily detached for one purpose or another, presented no difficulties. I should think that they were quite plainly seconded. But if that is not the correct view, will the Government, instead of sitting back and saying that they will not do anything, bring their mind to bear on the problem of people who have been persuaded in the past to be members of a Force, and who will thus be drawn into an Army which they have left? I will not use any harsh language, as it is apparently necessary, because we have to recognise other people's gallantry, to blind ourselves to other facts. Unless the Government are going to give way on Clause 5, Sub-section (1), the words "a member of" will produce the maximum of difficulty, with no benefit at all.

Mr. McCorquodale: I suggest that we had better discuss this on Clause 5, when the Solicitor-General will be able to deal with it.

Mr. Pritt: The Solicitor-General is here now, and he is not much younger than he will be when we come to Clause 5. What is the good of dealing with it on Clause 5, if this Clause, containing these objectionable words, is becoming law.

The Solicitor-General (Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe): I want very much to help my hon. and learned Friend on this point. If he thinks it will assist him in making up his mind as to his general action on the Bill, I will deal with the matter now.

Mr. Pritt: The point is that Clause 5 deals with a different Act of Parliament altogether.

The Solicitor-General: Certainly. With regard to this Clause, I do not agree with the view my hon. and learned Friend has put forward, about the word "serving." We should have the greatest difficulty in including in the connotation of the word "serving" the classes to which my hon. and learned Friend has referred. I think that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary ha3 shown, on that practical aspect, that the definition in the Bill is the better definition. I said that I would anticipate what I was going to indicate with regard to the general position about which my hon. and learned Friend is concerned, namely, the return of those who

have been released from, or have left, the service of Allied Powers. I suggest that the practical method of dealing with that is, that if there are hard cases they can be brought to the attention of the Ministry of Labour, or of anyone in the Government dealing with the matter, representations can be made to the Allied Government concerned, and a certificate obtained under Section 3, Sub-section (1, c). My hon. and learned Friend will probably like to say that that deals with another Act; but, from the practical point of view, if such a certificate is given it will be extremely difficult for the Allied Government to take steps to call the man up, and it will certainly conclude the matter so far as our own Act is concerned. I suggest that that is a practical method, and one by which assistance will be given to the comparative small number of cases which my hon. and learned Friend has in mind. I nope he will now understand what is in the mind of the Government on the point.

Mr. Pritt: I am sorry, but my hon. and learned Friend only convinces me that there is nothing in the mind of the Government on the point. What he offers is useless. Somebody—it need not be a Pole—is persuaded into the Forces of an Allied Power in 1941. He learns that they had no right to get him there, so he walks out. There is a good case—and if Clause 5 is passed there is a complete and absolute case—for saying that he has thereby become a member of those Forces, although he cannot effectively be brought back. The moment this Bill becomes an Act, he cannot go into the British Army, because he is a member of the Forces of the Power concerned. Therefore, the British military legislation does not apply to him at all. He goes to the Ministry of Labour, which says "We have no more to do with you than if you had been an Icelander, living in Iceland." His own Government says, "You know perfectly well that we want you in the Army. We put you there because we wanted you, and we would have fetched you back as a deserter at any moment if we had thought the case was clear enough; but it was not clear, and it might have involved us in a great deal of expense. Now, under this Act, it is clear that you are a member of the Forces and we shall have you arrested by the Metropolitan Police to-morrow, and charged as a deserter. You will not even be able to go to a British prison or concentration camp,


but will be handed over to our Forces as a deserter."
The only thing the Solicitor-General can offer is that that Government, which has ho intention of saying that the man is not a member of the Forces, because they want to say he is a member, could certify if they wanted to do so, which they do not, that the man is not a member of the Forces. What comfort is there to a person in that position in what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said? When he says that there are not very many of them, one can answer, first, why make even 10 people into reluctant soldiers of a country which they do not want to serve when they could be reasonable soldiers of this country, which they do want to serve? Secondly, if my information is correct, the numbers are comparatively large.

Mr. Lawson: I should like to put to the Solicitor-General a point about the position of a man who has been temporarily released. It is true that such a man is not actively serving, but he is usually understood to be a serving soldier; at any rate the claims of the Army upon him are quite clear. The Solicitor-General has made a statement that such men are not counted as serving soldiers. I gather that the hon. and learned Gentleman must have some sound legal decision upon that matter, although it has usually been considered to be a matter in the region of opinion rather than definite principle and decision. It is a rather important matter. I think hon. Members must be very satisfied by the unconscious tribute that is paid to the fairness of our Services in the desire of nationals of other countries to serve in those Services. As to deciding when a man is a deserter and when he is not, it is not a very easy thing to do. I remember a soldier who was once called up and told by the Commander that he was a deserter. He replied, "I cannot be a deserter because I am serving in the Northumberlands." The Commander said, "You were serving in the Welsh Fusiliers." The soldier replied, "That is true, but it was a long time ago," and he added, "I may as well be frank—I was also in the Artillery. A fellow wants a change sometimes." So the Commander gave him a good talking to and said he had better stay where he was; and as he was going out, the Commander said, "By

the way, you did not join any more, did you?" However, I think it is very important that we should get a definite legal opinion on the question whether a man is a serving soldier or not when he is temporarily discharged.

The Solicitor-General: I am very willing to deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Law-son). As far as I know, the word "serving" is not covered by an exact legal decision in the case in point. Therefore, I can only give my view, for what it is worth, but my hon. Friend will be aware that for some two and a half years I had to assist in that branch of the Army, and the problem to which he has referred is one which arises quite frequently. I should take the view, subject to anything further which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Hammersmith (Mr. Pritt) has to say, that "serving" means actually in service with the Forces and present on the strength of the Forces. If I may be excused for taking my own case, I was reverted to unemployment four months ago and I am still, in that sense, on the strength of the Army, but I am quite sure no court would ever hold that at the moment I am serving in the Forces. That is the sort of case that arises if somebody is released for work. Although it is only a matter of opinion, it is an opinion based on a fair amount of experience and on reasonable grounds.
I should like to say a few words about the remarks of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Hammersmith. I do not think he is really dealing with the realities of the situation in painting so sombre a picture as he has put before the Committee. Let us take the case he gave. In the first place, the man whom he envisaged joined the Allied Army. My hon. and learned Friend suggests that he did so under undue pressure, of which he does not approve. But there is the first position, that he joined that Army and served in it for some time. Of the people who do join that Army, the number who are subject and who have reacted to that pressure must be comparatively few, and would start with a comparatively small number. Let us now take the case to the next stage. My hon. and learned Friend says that the person left the Army. I do not want to prejudge the matter by saying whether he deserted or was absent without leave, or


whether he did what he was entitled to do. My hon. and learned Friend presupposed that that matter should be left open, and I proceed on the same grounds. At any rate the man remained outside the Army, with the fact that the Allied Power did not bring him back and try him as a deserter or as an absentee without leave. Therefore, that presupposes that the Allied Power did not desire his return for one reason or another. My hon. and learned Friend suggested that the reason was that they did not want the expense. There may have been other reasons. They allowed him to rest. In these circumstances, I suggested to my hon. and learned Friend that if it was a case with grounds justifying the man being allowed to rest, he could—at the suggestion of the Allied Power reversing their present policy and seeking to call him up—make representations. These representations would be passed on to the Allied Government.
Again—and this takes us to the third change in circumstances which one must presuppose to get my hon. and learned Friend's hard case—suppose that then they do call him up or seek to have him arrested, they will do so against the representations of the Government. That is a set of circumstances which it is very difficult to imagine. There is, then, the question of the sanctions they will use. My hon. and learned Friend will appreciate that one does not want to make declarations on hypothetical cases, and that therefore, I must be very guarded and circumspect. My hon. and learned Friend will appreciate what I have in mind. Therefore, I do say that at that point, which is the third reversal of policy presupposed in order to produce the hard case, there is still a sanction remaining in the hands of His Majesty's Government. I ask my hon. and learned Friend not to dismiss these reasons too lightly.

Mr. Pritt: I am sorry to say that the Solicitor-General seems to have been put up by the Government to defend something which is completely indefensible. The suggestion is that the British Govern-ought not to intervene in any such matters. I would point out that I have been negotiating with the British Government on a matter not very dissimilar from this 26 hours ago. The answer was, "You know, dear boy, how difficult it is to intervene with Allied Governments, and, as we

have no responsibility in the matter, we must not say a word except in the most unofficial way." Let us take this question of principle. The Solicitor-General says that the Allied Government do not collect a man, or attempt to do so, that it may well be they do not want him, and that they will give a certificate saying he is not a member of their Forces. The Committee will see how wrong that is in principle. The object of this Bill is to give every citizen of Allied Powers, who is not already in uniform, the option to say which Army he will serve, whereas the Solicitor-General's proposal in all these cases is to give the option, not to the man, but to the Government. He says that the Allied Government have not troubled to charge the man, and then he said something about sanction. All that happens is that a man is arrested by a police constable, is brought before a magistrate as a deserter—the ordinary Army Act provisions are applied—and the magistrate, once he is convinced he is a member of the Armed Forces, has no option but to hand him over. There is no difficulty about sanction.
You may say that the Allied forces have not troubled to collect this or that man through the courts, and that they do not particularly want him. Surely someone has told the Solicitor-General of the legal position? Surely someone has told him that a case was tried in the King's Bench Division, and that it was specially expedited because it was a test case? The Attorney-General said it was of the greatest importance, as the position of hundreds of men depended on the result. Surely someone has told him it went to the court of appeal, and that a decision is pending in the House of Lords where it will be heard in a week or two? If this Bill comes into force before it is heard, it will appear to insult the whole course of legal procedure—by saying, "Do not worry about litigation, because, under Clause 5, if men have been in the Forces, you can collect them at the cost of 5s. each through a policeman." That is what the Government insist, instead of saying, "We do not like the words 'serving in.' We will think about the matter and make the position more satisfactory on the Report stage, or when the Bill is dealt with in another place." No, they are instructed to stand pat. They know their case is completely indefensible and they have nothing to suggest.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Pritt: I beg to move, in page 2, line 1, to leave out paragraph (b).
When the Committee remember the arguments I made against the words "two months," they will understand that I naturally object to a provision which, in certain circumstances, allows a longer period. If, however, the Government say that owing to distances, etc., certain powers require this provision, I shall ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. I should like first to know whether there is some reason for it.

Mr. McCorquodale: The suggestion is to omit the proviso by which the two months can be extended when it is so desired. I understand that when this Bill was being first discussed views were expressed that two months might be too short a period in the case of certain governments. I must confess, considering the arguments I used in answer to the first Amendment, I think it is equally desirable that these formalities should not be unduly prolonged. I think that two months should be sufficient for Allied nationals to make their arrangements, and, if the Committee desire it, I am prepared to accept the Amendment.

Mr. Pritt: I am very much obliged. I shall be very grateful if that is done.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Pritt: I beg to move, in page 2, line 4, at the end, to insert:
(c) no person to whom the National Service Acts, 1939 to 1941, are made applicable by this Act shall be entered on the military register until a reasonable opportunity has been afforded him of exercising his rights thereunder to apply for exemption, postponement, or deferment.
I move this Amendment with some reluctance and hesitation for the reasons I will explain in a moment. This proviso called "(c)" no doubt will now become "(b)"—that is a matter of drafting. My own view is, as was stated by the Minister during the Second Reading Debate, that once these British Acts apply to a person all the necessary machinery for postponement, deferment and so on operates satisfactorily, but my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman), who asked me to apologise to the Committee for his absence, due to the fact that his only partner has been called up under the National Service Acts, was afraid there might be some loophole or trouble, and that it was better to have

some such provision in the Bill. If the Government feel satisfied that there is no difficulty, I shall not seek to press the Amendment.

Mr. McCorquodale: I will certainly give the assurance that these words are quite unnecessary. All the rights under the National Service Acts will be available to these men.

Mr. Pritt: In view of that assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill"

Mr. Beechman: I should like to say that I am a little concerned that this Bill—and this Clause is the operative part—applies only to men. I realise that the women of Allied nationals are, in the great majority of cases, doing most excellent work, and I also realise there might be great difficulty in sending them to work or serve in districts remote from where they have settled. In order that we may know the circumstances, I should like to ask the Minister two questions. Have the Government power to direct Allied national women to work on the same lines as British women, and is it proposed to use those powers?

Mr. McCorquodale: This is the only country in the world which has applied the National Service Acts to its women. I have never heard any suggestion that we should apply them to the women of Allied Governments. We have complete powers of direction of all nationals, but we have not so far applied these powers as rigorously as we do to our own nationals. I have been asked to explain the position of dual nationals rather more fully under this Act, and this may par-haps be an opportunity, in case there is any misconception. Men may have two nationalities if, for example, they are born of foreign parents on British soil. Men with two nationalities, one of which is British, are British subjects and are liable under our National Service Acts. In view of the provisions of the international protocol relating to military obligations in certain cases of double nationality adopted at the Hague in 1930, such men are given the opportunity to alienate their British nationality if they wish. If they do so,


they cease to be British subjects and pass out of liability under our National Service Acts. If they do not, they are called up to the British Forces like any other British subject. If they are below the age of 21 they are asked whether they intend to alienate their British nationality on reaching their majority. If they state that they intend to do so, their calling up is suspended until they reach that date. If they state that they do not intend to do so, naturally we call them up. This arrangement does not apply to dual nationals whose nationality other than British is one of an enemy State. It has been decided in the courts, that to alienate British nationality in wartime to that of an enemy state is treason. It is proposed under this Bill that when an Order-in-Council has been made affecting nationals of an Allied State, dual nationals who possess British nationality and the nationality of the Allied State should be called up to the British Forces unless they have, within the period to be allowed, joined the appropriate Allied force. This will apply to men of all proclaimed ages. Those who are under 21 will not be given the opportunity of having their calling up suspended even if they have expressed the intention of alienating their British nationality on reaching their majority. When such dual nationals are called up to the British Forces they will, as British subjects, be posted to any branch of the Forces as military circumstances may require, and in the light of any preference that they may have expressed. These provisions, therefore, mean that a man who has a dual nationality, Allied and British, has the privileges of both an Allied and a British citizen.

Mr. Lawson: The hon. Gentleman has said that these foreign Powers have conscription, but not for women in most cases, whereas we have conscription for both men and women. That means, of course, that masses of our women are being called into the Services. It may be that they will take the place of those who have left places of businesses and all kinds of work. The hon. Gentleman said there is power of direction of these alien women, but there is not the power of conscription. That, of course, places them in a somewhat favoured position, but I do not think there would be any very strong feeling about it. The Clause

itself is, as far as I can see, a very useful Clause, and it serves to bring out the fact that there is a greater desire to be in the British Army than in most of the others. I should not put it outside our ability to devise some means whereby alien Women should be placed on a level with our own women. It seems to me that there may be some repercussions. I think our people bear in mind the fact that these countries have suffered equally with ours, and to a greater extent in most cases. It might lead to all kinds of liberties being taken, so to speak, on the part of some of these foreign nationals. Some of us have daughters serving in the Forces and we see girls carrying packs as heavy as some of us carried in the last war and doing it for very little pay. It is an amazing thing. I know the Bill is based upon the Visiting Forces Bill, giving the right to these nationals to put into operation their own particular principles and methods in enforcing service on the part of their nationals, but I should say it is worthy of future consideration whether these foreign women, who are outside their own particular code, should not be considered on a level with our own women and given an equal opportunity of serving in our Forces with foreign national men as laid down in the Bill.

The Chairman: Perhaps the Solicitor-General can tell me whether in this Clause the word "men" includes women under any interpretation Act. If it does not, and if it is confined to men of the male sex, I shall have to rule out this discussion in regard to women.

The Solicitor-General: In this context I think it is clear that "men" refers to the male sex. Certainly I interpret it that way.

The Chairman: That was my impression I rather think the point cropped up before on some National Service Bill. I do not think the matter can be debated further.

Mr. Lawson: Would that rule out a discussion of the matter on the Clause? If it had been an Amendment it would be another matter altogether, but I should have thought that in discussing the Clause we might express our opinions.

The Chairman: Attention can be called, as it has been abundantly called, to the


fact that women are not dealt with in the Bill; but I think on reflection the hon. Gentleman will agree that a Debate as to whether or to what extent they should be included would be quite outside the scope of any Debate on this Bill.

Mr. Pritt: I respectfully agree with the Solicitor-General that the words "men who are nationals" make it plain that they must be males. Whether in another place or on Report it might be useful to alter the word "men" into "males" to prevent anybody litigating about it, is a question that might be considered.

Miss Rathbone: I would suggest that that should be done. I have not been able to understand why women should not be included, but I do not think in the particular circumstances of the case it would make a great difference.

Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Clauses 2 to 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 5.—(Definition of member of force for purposes of Allied Forces and removal of doubts arising therefrom.)

Mr. Pritt: I beg to move, in page 3, line 45, to leave out "been duly discharged therefrom," and to insert:
with or without the consent of such allied Power or foreign authority, ceased so to serve before the date of the passing of this Act.

This question has been partly discussed already, but to my mind it is a very serious matter. As this is the inevitable legislation by reference to reference to reference, perhaps I might explain what the legal position is. In English law there is plenty of law relating to what you may do to English Armed Forces, but if anybody else who is a member of the Armed Forces of some other country happens to be in this country, he is an ordinary visitor with full rights and you cannot apply any military discipline to him at all. The first inroad into that was taken some years ago when visiting Forces of the Commonwealth were in this country and it was necessary to provide for their discipline. Consequently, it was enacted in effect that whenever Commonwealth Forces were visiting here you could apply the measures of the English military legislation to

them as if they were members of our Armed Forces. There then arose, and arose acutely after Dunkirk, the question of the Armed Forces of the various Allies who came to this country, not as isolated visitors, but in considerable numbers. It was considered necessary—and it obviously was necessary, otherwise they might have melted into thin air—to make provision for them. It was a reasonable legislative point of view as a matter of practice to say, "We will apply to them by the Allied Forces Act the provisions of the Visiting Forces Act, and in that way we shall ultimately apply the ordinary British legislation applicable to British soldiers."

That meant that at two removes, if a man deserts, say, from the Dutch Forces, he can be fetched back by a Metropolitan Police constable and tried as an ordinary deserter before the police court and sent back to his Army. I mention that partly because some day you may want to see a connected narrative about it, and partly to emphasise that I doubt whether the Allied Forces Act was ever intended to apply to anybody but the Allied Forces which came here. When in fact an effort was made in the case which is now pending, in which I am no longer engaged, to say that the Allied Forces Act applied to people who have been brought into those Forces while they were here, it was commonly said that the view of the Law Officers of the Government was that the Allied Forces Act had never been intended to do anything of the sort. My own view was that it plainly did apply to anybody who was a member of those Forces even if they had only become members while they were here. What Sub-section (1) of this Clause seeks to do is to say that if anybody has been a member of those Forces, however illegitimately and reluctantly, and however intolerable he finds them, he shall be deemed to be a member unless he has actually been given his discharge. That means that he can be arrested the day after this Bill becomes law and treated as a deserter.

There are two grave evils in that. Ironically and rather tragically—and I say this with no desire to pay an undeserved compliment to the Government—we have here a Bill which is obviously the result of prolonged negotiation, in which the British point of view and the point of view particularly that I am putting


forward, that these people should have proper consideration, has obviously prevailed to a great extent. As a result this is not a Bill to compel people to go into the Forces of an allied Power; it is a Bill to say that they must go into one or the other and that they may choose. It is ironical and sad that in this very Bill we should thus have an Amendment of the Allied Forces Act which enables x Government to go to a whole group of its nationals and say, "You thought the Allied Forces Act was going to let you go into the British Army and be free of our Forces which you do not happen to like, but there is a section in that Act which says that we may after all cut the whole of these things clear by collecting you as deserters, and we shall do it to-morrow morning." The more important objection I raise is that this is a sort of retrospective conscription. It really says to any one of quite a number of men, "You were taken into our Forces, and you disliked them so much that you walked out. We cannot fetch you back because we were advised that there was the gravest doubt whether you could be described as members of our Forces. Now we are getting in a Bill, which is primarily designed to give you freedom to serve in the British Army, power to conscript you. The Allied Powers Bill gives us no power to conscript you, but because we rather illegitimately in some cases got you in uniform for 24 hours 18 months ago, we can now say you are conscripted by this indirect method. Because you were in uniform all that time ago you are deemed to be a member, and because you are a member we can, under the Allied Forces Act, assume you to be a deserter and put you into our Army."

The whole scheme of this legislation is that there shall never be conscription of a man of X country in this country. We have expressly refused to conscript him into the X Army, but have said that if he does not choose to go into the X Army he shall be conscripted into the British Army; and yet by this Clause we are saying that a particular class who, if anything, ought to be regarded as rather more deserving than less because they happen to have been put into that Army when they need not have been, are to be indirectly and retrospectively conscripted; because the effect of this legislation will be that just as that man thinks he is going

into the British Army he will be arrested by a Metropolitan policeman and made into a private in the X Army instead. Frankly, I have found the very greatest difficulty in deciding how to legislate to deal with this matter, and I am not very happy about the precise form of words suggested, but if we can get the Government to agree in principle, there probably will not be much difficulty about the form of words What the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) and I have sought to do is this: The Clause as it stands applies to any person who has served in the Allied Forces on or after the date of the passing of the Allied Forces Act and has not been duly discharged therefrom. What we want to do is to get rid of the idea of a formal discharge, which I imagine is given in very few cases, and to substitute what I might call a de facto discharge. Therefore, we would like to leave out the words
been duly discharged therefrom
and to put in other words so that the Clause would read that a man is deemed not to be a member of those Forces
if he has served in those forces on or after the date of the passing of that Act and with or without the consent of such Allied Power or foreign authority ceased so to serve before the date of the passing of this Act.
I am sorry to have taken a little time over this, but it is a complicated matter from the legal point of view, and that must be my excuse.

The Solicitor-General: I think it would be convenient if I dealt first with the substance of my hon. and learned Friend's point before I draw attention to certain difficulties in his Amendment, because he frankly said that he recognises that there are difficulties in the Amendment as it is framed. My hon. and learned Friend is really doing this Sub-section an injustice by his suggestion that it is putting another restriction or possibly binding power on the foreign nationals with whom he is particularly concerned. He will remember that in the case to which he is referring the contention became possible that a national might be treated as being a member of an Allied Force simply because he had received his calling up papers and had failed to respond. As he knows, under our own National Service Act that is the position if certain conditions are fulfilled, and the contention might have been advanced, and was certainly considered, that membership of an Allied


Force might arise simply from notice having been given and the person not complying with that notice. In order to make it perfectly clear that that was not what was deemed to be membership under the Act, the Clause was drafted so that for membership to arise there must have been service in the Forces in the sense of actual service, which we have discussed already to-day. Therefore, I think that on reflection my hon. and learned Friend will realise that in crediting this Sub-section with injustice he is really placing the matter rather too high and will see that it is not in accordance with the facts.
That leaves us with the second general point which my hon. and learned Friend has made, and which he has christened "retrospective conscription." That is a formidable phrase and is not really justified for one moment by the facts in these cases. I have already endeavoured to put to my hon. and learned Friend, with alack of success of which I am very conscious, the circumstances which we are really discussing. We are discussing, as a first step, the position where the national had actually enlisted in the Forces. My hon. and learned Friend says there are certain cases in which that enlistment has been procured by undesirable means. I ask him to consider in how many cases it could be proved that the enlistment was bad because those means had been adopted, and suggest that that would reduce the number considerably. The second stage which we are considering is one in which that person, having enlisted, left the Army of the Allied Nations. There, again, there is no dispute between us. The third state of facts is that the Allied Nations have taken no steps for a considerable time to get him back. Then the position arises that under this Clause he becomes a person who has served. I have suggested that the number of cases in which these three conditions obtain, as they must obtain to produce the state of affairs which is troubling my hon. and learned Friend, the number of cases in which an Allied Government is going to change its policy and call them back, must be infinitely fewer than the few cases with which we started.
I have already said, and I am sorry it found so little favour in the mind of my hon. and learned Friend, that if there were hard cases and if he or my hon. Friend

the Member for the English Universities (Mr. Harvey) or any of those who take a particular interest in these matters made representations, or if the person himself made representations, the case would be considered, and in turn representations could be made to the Allied Government and the position could be concluded by the issue of a certificate. It is a question of dealing as well as we can with a difficult subject in these difficult circumstances, and I cannot say more. I have endeavoured to put the matter frankly and fairly before my hon. and learned Friend and to give the reasons why I adhere to the view I have expressed.
It is only right that, my hon. and learned Friend having spoken with his usual freedom about the defects in my argument and knowledge, the Committee should consider the very patent defects that appear in the Amendment put forward by him. It would first of all have the obvious results that a man who deserts from an Allied Force before the Bill receives the Royal Assent will cease to be a member of the Allied Force for the purpose of the Allied Forces Act. That is not the most encouraging way to deal with Allied Forces. Even if one were to amend my hon. and learned Friend's Amendment and improve it by taking out the words "without the consent," there are manifold difficulties which are apparent. There is the curious result that a man who, with the consent of the Allied Force, ceased to serve before the passing of the Act, will cease to be a member of the Allied Force, but a man who, with the consent of the Allied Force, should serve after the passing of the Act, would be a man who had not ceased to serve before the passing of the Act, and therefore would remain a member of the Allied Force.

Mr. Pritt: I think the hon. and learned Gentleman has failed to see that the wording is "this Act" and not "that Act" in the last line.

The Solicitor-General: I would still ask my hon. and learned Friend to consider this matter. I considered his Amendment very carefully, and that was the effect I deemed that it would have; but the matter does not stop there. He has talked very contemptuously, as he is entitled to do, about my consideration of the practical steps. Just take the practical steps which my hon. and learned Friend envisages. His words are "cease


to serve." Just imagine a court of summary jurisdiction trying to construe those words and the difficulty which would arise. They arose here. The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) asked my opinion regarding them. Here, we say there should be a formal discharge, so that a document could be placed before the police court dealing with the matter and the police court have the matter clearly before it. In place of that, my hon. Friend suggests that a difficult and grave question should be left to them. I ask him to consider just what he had in mind by "ceasing to serve with consent." Who would give the consent? Would it be a sergeant-major, a captain or a colonel?

Mr. Pritt: It is evident that the Solicitor-General does not understand the Amendment at all. If it is "with or without consent," nobody needs to consider whether it is with or without. It must be one or the other.

The Solicitor-General: I had already considered that the words "without consent" raised such an intolerable position that I was hoping my hon. and learned Friend would no longer wish to retain them.

Mr. Pritt: Do I understand that the Solicitor-General is criticising my Amendment not in the form in which I had put it but in that in which he thinks it ought to be? I welcome his criticism in that case most heartily.

The Solicitor-General: I was only doing my hon. and learned Friend the justice to think that, on reflection, he might reject the most difficult and contentious part of his Amendment.

Mr. Pritt: He asks me to leave out a couple of words and then says that if I do my Amendment makes nonsense.

The Solicitor-General: It is apparent that if the words are not left out, the situation is intolerable. If they are left out, the situation is still very difficult. In those circumstances, I respectfully say to my hon. and learned Friend that his Amendment could not commend itself to the Committee, and for the reasons which I dealt with first I suggest that the point of view of the Government should be supported by the Committee.

Mr. Pritt: I have not the faintest intention of charging, my hon. and learned Friend with any defect in knowledge. Indeed, my admiration for the Law Officers, and my gratitude that I have never been one and never shall be one, is due almost entirely to the fact that they have to discharge day by day the utterly impossible task of defending the indefensible. Let me deal with the merits of the matter. I do not blame my hon. and learned Friend in the least. It is a very interesting controversy. He spent a couple of minutes describing my Amendment and twice that time pointing out how much more stupid it would be if, on his suggestion, I left out a couple of words. That is all beside the point. The Government are either going to concede this principle or they are not. The Solicitor-General did not say that they were going to do so, so it is plain that he was not conceding it. In these circumstances, what does it matter how difficult it might be to carry out my Amendment? If the Government had any intention to carry it out, it might matter that my form of words was a pretty bad one.
Let me get to the principle itself. Let me begin where my hon. and learned Friend began. He said that I did the Clause some injustice because it safeguards people who have been called up but have never served. at all from the argument, which I think would be a very weak one, but certainly could be made, suggesting that they were members of the Force. It is really not doing any injustice to the Clause, if it does one very important injustice and one very reasonable justice, to point out that it does do the injustice. I must protest that it is a wicked thing that the Government keep on advancing as a defence that the Clause only does injustice to a few people. It is like the famous baby in "Tristram Shandy" which was said to be only a very little one. What earthly excuse is there for the Government to get up and say—although I know they do not put it like this— "We know it is monstrous, and it could quite easily be avoided with a little good will but it does not matter for it only ruins the lives of half a dozen people. It is not as if it were a dozen or 20"? Here is an unnecessary cruelty, a wasteful cruelty, because it will make one dozen, or two dozen, or, if the statement of the Crown in the courts can be


relied upon, 100 dozen people into bad and miserable soldiers instead of into tolerably good ones.
What does the hon. and learned Member suggest is the remedy? Instead of making the Act read properly he suggests to me that if any particular individual is affected by being taken off into the Army, with or without a Metropolitan police constable, and sent to his depot in Wales or Scotland, or wherever it may be, some Member of Parliament—I do not know whether he meant myself—should then make representations to the Government Department. My hon. Friend mentioned as an afterthought that perhaps the man could make the representations himself to the Government. Instead of doing the thing justly, it is suggested that people are to make representations to the British Government. One very good test is, will the Solicitor-General guarantee that if any individual in any of these armies makes representations to the British Government that he does not want to serve in those Armed Forces, that the British Government will take up that case actively with the foreign Government? If he can give that guarantee, will he tell me which is the Department, whether it is the Home Office, the Foreign Office, the War Office or—I tremble to suggest it—the Law Officers of the Crown?
I know from experience that the answer of the British Government to a representation from an ordinary individual would be to acknowledge receipt of his letter and leave it at that, and to one from a Member of Parliament would be to say, "We are really awfully sorry, but there is nothing we can do. We have passed this Bill, after the hon. and learned Member for North Hammersmith had talked for hours, it has produced all these injustices, but we cannot go to the foreign Governments, who are sovereign Governments, having given them those powers, and ask them not to exercise those powers in a certain case. It is not a question of not having time, it is not a question of advancing the argument advanced in Parliament that it was only an injustice to a few people; there is the Statute, and the foreign Power is acting within its rights." The Solicitor-General repeats once again that, after all, there cannot be many such cases. At any rate they are cases in which the foreign Power has not sought

through the courts to get the man back. Let me repeat once again—he understood it when I said it before, he will understand it when I say it again, but he has given it the go-by in his answer—that there is a test case still pending. If there had been no difficulty about the interpretation of the Acts, the assumption is that Governments which have taken the trouble to put these people into their Armed Forces would have taken the trouble, for disciplinary reasons if for no other, to get them back, if they had not found that the process of getting them back led to litigation costing many thousands of pounds.
My hon. and learned Friend does not like the words "retrospective conscription." He has not answered or attempted to answer the point that there is not intended to be any conscription into the Armed Forces of any foreign Power, but that if you pass this Clause people who are not serving and do not want to serve in those Forces will be collected by the police and put into those Forces if the Allied Government wants them. What is intended by the Statute to be an option on the part of the citizen has become an option on the part of the Allied Government, as to whether they will use the couple of Statutes, which expressly refrain from giving the right to conscript anybody, to conscript people.
I have put before the Committee a number of arguments, I believe them to be sensible arguments and worthy of an answer, but the Solicitor-General, who could perfectly well produce the answer if there was one, has produced instead a series of plausible statements which leads me once again to sympathise with the people who have to perform the difficult tasks of the Law Officers. He has not produced a single argument in answer to all these points, and I ask either that the principle shall be accepted or that we shall be told that consideration will be given to it in another place. If not, it is obvious that this Government do not care whether their legislation is good or bad, whether there is an answer or not, whether it does injustices or not, or whether they have good soldiers or not.

Amendment negatived.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 6 and 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Disputed Nationality (Claims).)

If proceedings are taken in virtue of any section of this Act against any person who denies that he is a national of the Power of which he is assumed to be a national by the Power or by any British authority taking the proceedings, opportunity shall be given to that person to submit the evidence upon which his denial is based to a tribunal of three persons appointed to deal with questions of disputed nationality under the Act and the decision of the tribunal shall be decisive as to whether proceedings can be taken under the Act.
Each Allied Power to whom the Act applies shall be invited to appoint one member of the aforesaid tribunal to serve when the claim to be heard concerns a person alleged to be a national of the said Power. The other two members of the tribunal shall be appointed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department.—[Miss Rathbone.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Miss Rathbone: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
As I am neither a lawyer nor a draftsman, and had not the opportunity before putting down this Clause of consulting with either of those types of expert, I am quite prepared to be told that my new Clause is badly drafted, but obviously if the Government are willing to accept the principle they can easily change that. I think the purpose of the proposal I have put down is perfectly clear. I think it was the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour who explained to us how cases of dual nationality would be dealt with. I am not concerned in this new Clause with cases of dual nationality, but with the cases in which nobody really knows to what nationality a man belongs, and where, because he is alleged to be a Pole or a Czech, or whatever it may be, he is going to be dealt with under this Act although he himself believes that he does not belong to the nationality in question. To show the kind of case I have in mind take the case of a man who was born in a part of what is now Poland but which at the time of his birth was part of Austro-Hungary; he subsequently came to this country in childhood, but never bothered to get himself naturalised. He might have had himself entered as an Austrian, but not knowing quite what nationality he belonged to, he thought it might look better if he entered himself as a Pole, and now he finds that he is called up on the grounds that he is a Pole. Or it may be a case of a Sudeten German who was born at a time when Sudeten Germany—

Bohemia—was part of Austro-Hungary. He would then become a citizen of Czechoslovakia, and is now a citizen of a German Protectorate.
There are a number of cases of that kind in which the man has not consciously deceived anybody, but in which he has allowed himself to be entered as belonging to a nationality which he now recognises he does not belong to, and whose Armed Forces he does not wish to join. It may be said that in such cases they should go into the British Army, but there is the disadvantage that they are only to be allowed to join a pioneer company, composed of alien nationals. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has told me, in the case of a man who had lived nearly all his life in this country but who had joined the Armed Forces of an Allied Power because he thought he was compelled to when really he was not, that the legal remedy is in his own hands. The question I want to put in this Clause is, What is the legal remedy for the man who believes that he does not belong to the nationality to which he is assigned, and therefore ought not to come under the processes of this Act? To what court has he to go, and who is to decide whether he does or does not come under the purview of this Act?

The Solicitor-General: I hope that when my hon. Friend considers this matter in the light of the provisions of the Bill, she will see that the Bill itself provides a much simpler and more satisfactory method of determining questions of nationality for the purpose of any proceedings arising out of the National Service Acts, 1939 to 1941, because as I appreciate the class of case that my hon. Friend has in mind in this Amendment it is that of the persen who does not join the national Forces of an Allied Power and is then faced with the requirement of joining our Forces, because the person who does not admit being of a particular nationality will not, of course, join the Forces of that nation. Therefore, I put that point on one side. I would be very glad if my hon. Friend would correct me if I am wrong, because I wish to deal with the substance of the matter.

Miss Rathbone: Regarding the instance with which my hon. and learned Friend has just been dealing, supposing that a man who was, at one time, in an Allied


Force, is now brought back into that Force? What is the position? In that case the question of disputed nationality would arise.

The Solicitor-General: I suppose it is conceivable that such a case might arise, but I do not know that any of the cases that my hon. Friend was putting before us were cases in which a dispute about nationality arose. I think it is proper to put this point on one side as. a conceivable class of case, but not one which has given practical difficulty.

Miss Rathbone: I do not wish to interrupt my hon. and learned Friend again but I think it is more than that. The point concerns a man who had been more or less coerced to go into a Force; who afterwards discovered that he was very uncomfortable there and did not belong there and who, in his own belief, realised he was not a member of that nationality, and therefore simply absented himself and went away. That kind of case, of which there are a good many, is just the kind of case in which a man ought to be able to find out definitely whether he belongs to that particular nationality or not.

The Solicitor-General: I have dealt with the Government attitude on that class of case, and as far as that is concerned, if the question is raised that somebody has joined an Allied Force, not merely under a misapprehension as to the powers of compulsion or suggestion that he should join, but also under a misapprehension as to his own nationality, then I suggest that he should raise that matter by extra-legal means. I do not wish to go again over the points I have discussed but I do wish to deal with the main class of case which the hon. Lady has put forward, that is, the class of case in which somebody says he has not joined an Allied Army, and the two months having elapsed, he becomes liable to our Acts. If my hon. Friend will look at Clause 3 (1, a) she will see how nationality is determined. The Subsection states:
For the purposes of any proceedings under or arising out of the National Service Acts, 1939 to 1941, as applied by this Act—
(a) a certificate issued by a Secretary of State that a person of the name and the description specified in the certificate, is, of was at a time so specified, registered under the Aliens Restriction Acts; 1914 and 1919, as a national of a Power so specified shall be sufficient evidence that he is, or was at

that time, a national of that Power, unless the contrary is proved.
There are two points of importance here which I am sure the hon. Lady will consider. The first is that the nationality under which a person would be registered in accordance with the Aliens Acts is based on information supplied by the person himself. Therefore it does not seem a bad thing to start on that. You start on the Home Office decision as to the person's nationality more on his own information. But assuming that some difficulty has arisen—fresh circumstances, or something of that kind—there are still the words:
… unless the contrary is proved;".
so that it is still open to the national to put forward in the police court, when he comes up, the plea that that information was wrong and that he can now show that he belongs to some other nationality which would place him in a different position.

Miss Rathbone: Would the man not be brought up at a police court under the Act, and is a police court a good body to decide questions of disputed nationality? Would not my proposed tribunal be a much better body?

The Solicitor-General: Having in my time appeared before my hon. Friend in a police court—I may say as an advocate—I would have hesitated on that ground alone to pass any strictures upon such a court. Seriously, the answer to the point which she has just put to me is that I do not accept for a moment the view that a court of summary jurisdiction is an unsuitable tribunal for a case of this kind. It is a question of fact, and if my hon. Friend will look through the Law Reports in the last war she will find that very difficult questions of this type arose in the police courts. In London there are the stipendiaries, and outside London there are the benches of magistrates, of whom the hon. Lady knows just as much as I do. On this question of fact, I suggest that the police court is a suitable tribunal. As my hon. Friend knows, on fact there is an appeal to quarter sessions, and on law an appeal to the Divisional Court. I do not want at this moment to change this discussion into one on the merits of our summary jurisdiction system, but I do say that it is a tribunal which is perfectly capable of dealing with this class of case. On the other hand,


I respectfully suggest to my hon. Friend that the insertion of another tribunal of a new and untried sort, as she suggests, into this machinery would be a waste of time and money which would be incompatible with the serious conditions of war.

Miss Rathbone: May I appeal to the Solicitor-General to think over this point again? He rather took my breath away when he said that the police court was a good body to decide a case of disputed nationality.

Mr. Pritt: I would like to say a few words on this matter because I think it shows that the Solicitor-General has not seen all the difficulties. The first thing that the Solicitor-General said was that he assumed that this would apply only in cases where a man, disputing the suggested nationality X, and therefore automatically coming under our legislation, as applied by this Measure would, if there were proceedings, appear in a police court because he had not obeyed the National Service Acts. The Solicitor-General said, rightly, that in such a case the question of nationality would not arise at all. If I understood her aright, the hon. Lady pointed out that the position was somewhat wider when there was disputed nationality. When one comes to think it over the position is that under Clause 5 there will be, my hon. and learned Friend says a few, but I say a good many, cases in which people are sought by the Power of nationality X as citizens of X and who wish to deny it. They will be prosecuted and they will be proceeded against in the police court as deserters.
It is plain, if one looks at the words of the Amendment, that this procedure will be taken in virtue of Clause 5, because Clause 5 will be part of the necessary legal provision argued in many cases to build up the case for the prosecution. Thereupon you would get in these people's cases, if the proposed Clause were made part of the Measure, a definite provision for this special tribunal to decide the point. I want to deal, first, with the argument of the Solicitor-General. He argued, if I understand him rightly—and it is an odd argument for a lawyer—that you could get this satisfactorily decided without any lawyer at all under Clause 3 (1). The courts are sometimes the best people to decide. My hon. and learned Friend advanced the argument that you can use Clause 3 (1 a). The answer is

that you cannot, because the prosecution of which we are thinking is one which will not take place under the National Service Act at all, but under the Army Act, plus the Visiting Forces Act, plus the Allied Forces Act.

The Solicitor-General: I cannot have made myself quite clear. I said with regard to the first class of case, that is the absconder case, that it would be dealt with in the way I had already mentioned in answering my hon. and learned Friend on an earlier Clause. It would require to be dealt with by extra legal provision for reasons which I have given. I confined my arguments on the suitability of the court of summary jurisdiction to the second class of case, that is, of men who did not join the Allied Forces and were then brought up as being liable to join our Forces as members of these Allied nationalities. The question of their nationality arose at that point. I endeavoured to make the distinction and I hope my hon. and learned Friend will acquit me of any desire to confuse the issue by seeming to combine the two points.

Mr. Pritt: I certainly would never assume that my hon. and learned Friend was desiring to confuse the issue. One sometimes acts involuntarily in these matters. I have not yet got to the question of the suitability or unsuitability of the police court at all. I understand that my hon. and learned Friend was recommending, as comfort to the hon. Lady, a portion of Clause 3 (1a) and I was only pointing out that it cannot possibly apply to cases that are probably most important here. I pass from that point to consider the substance of this Clause. Are the courts of summary jurisdiction the best courts to decide this sort of point? I do not very much like special tribunals, but they are sometimes useful. Under labour legislation they are of the greatest possible value The Government very often put up people on the Front Bench to argue that you must have a special tribunal because the regular courts are unsuitable for the job. I suggest that the courts of summary jurisdiction are not well suited for this job at all. The Solicitor-General says that if you look at the Law Reports in the last war you will find that the courts of summary jurisdiction decided lots of these points. It is true that they did, but the fact that you find them in


the Law Reports shows that the method of getting such a point decided is, that you have to start in the court of summary jurisdiction, which brings you, in the end, to the expensive glory of being reported in the Law Reports because you have to go to the Court of Appeal—not a very satisfactory method of appeal procedure—to get it decided.
There would be this practical advantage in adopting the Clause of the hon. Lady. If you establish a special tribunal you get the matter decided fairly quickly and very cheaply without any particular publicity or fuss, and decided once for all. If you leave it to the ordinary courts, you will be saying to every litigant who is rich, "Allow yourself to be taken to the police court. Get a case stated and in six months' time, at an expenditure of probably less than a couple of hundred pounds, you will have it decided." Or, saying to the poor man, "We are sorry, but as you are poor you must go to the police court. The magistrates will not understand a thing about it. They will decide the way that they think is the easiest and simplest, and in accordance with the passport position 20 years ago. You will have the right of appeal which you will not be rich enough to exercise and you will go into the one Army in which you do not want to serve." In all those circumstances, little as I like special tribunals, I think they are a little better for deciding questions of this sort, and I suggest that the Committee would be well advised to give a Second Reading to the new Clause moved by the hon. Lady.

Question, "That the Clause be read a Second time", put, and negatived.

Bill reported, with an Amendment; as amended, considered; read the Third time, and passed.

Orders of the Day — HOUSING (RURAL WORKERS) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This Bill merely extends the time for which application for assistance under the Act of 1926 may be received by local authorities. It extends the time by three years. If this legislation were not introduced no applications could be received

and no subsidies could be paid after 30th September, 1942. The Bill therefore extends the time to September, 1945, as has been done in several other cases. I think the House will agree that it does not in any way prejudice any scheme for rural housing after the war, but it would be very inconvenient to make any change at present.

Mr. Mathers: I am sure that the whole House will welcome the emergence of this Bill and will be ready to give it a Second Reading. We have seen to some extent the effects of it. Indeed the use to which the existing Act. has been put is indicated in the Financial Memorandum, and I am sure that the figures there are very significant and very pleasing because they represent a very great improvement upon Scottish, English and Welsh rural housing. I emphasise Scotland because I think it is clear from the figures that Scotland, although a smaller country, has taken greater advantage of these provisions than Southern Britain. The object of the Bill, therefore, is one that can be commended to the House and I. accept definitely the statement from the Parliamentary Secretary that now is not the time to be making comprehensive alterations in legislation of this kind.
There is one point, however, to which I want to draw attention. In Clause 2 reference is made on two occasions to the Housing (Rural Workers) (Scotland) Acts, 1926 to 1938. One would naturally think, seeing Titles used in that way that there were Acts bearing such Titles, but there are no such Acts with such Titles. It was with some difficulty that I got to the bottom of this reference, which seems to me to be a greatly exaggerated and aggravated case of legislation by reference. I know that the way in which to get rid of these difficulties is to get hold of all the Acts of Parliament that appertain to a particular subject and to codify and consolidate them, and I am hoping that in the days that lie ahead that will be done with regard to housing matters. I am sure that is something to which the House will require, some day, to bend its energies, but at the present time it cannot very well be done. When it is done; I hope it will be something more than consolidation and that there will be advance and improvement in the Act of Parliament that will emerge.
I am in this case driven back to the very evil of which I am complaining in order to remedy the immediate position in which I find myself. I am complaining of legislation by reference, yet I feel I must ask, for the purposes of clarification, for a reference to be made here showing what is the justification for referring to the "Housing (Rural Workers) (Scotland) Acts, 1926 to 1938." I have found that justification is provided by the Housing (Rural Workers) (Amendment) Act, 1938, which in Clause 12 (3) provides that that particular Title shall apply to a number of Acts that are brought under consideration in that amending Act. The clue, however, is difficult to find. It needs expert knowledge to enable that to be done and I do not want to have to rely upon expert legal knowledge, of which we have had such a scintillating display during the discussion on the Bill which has just been before a Committee of the Whole House. I want these things to be clear to the plain, ordinary man and I suggest that before we part with this Bill we should have some undertaking from the Government that this point will be clarified before the Bill becomes an Act of Parliament. But for the Bill itself and its object, I have nothing but support.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Westwood): The point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers) is an interesting one and as one who has had a little experience of local administration I have every sympathy with the desire for the codification and consolidation of Acts which have to be administered by local authorities. Having spent some little time in dealing with the consolidation of local government law on a particular committee I can assure him that his point has been looked at by previous Governments. A Committee has been set up, to go into the very point he has raised. It is, however, really one for consideration on the Committee stage of this Bill. Between now and then we will give it consideration to see whether there should be an insertion in Sub-section (3) of Clause 2 which would draw the attention of local authorities to what he has said. I give no promise except that this matter will be considered.
There are just one or two words I would like to say in explanation of the Act, particularly in its application to Scotland. Thirty-three county councils in Scotland

have schemes under the Act but one or two of them have suspended operations of their schemes for the duration of the war. In Scotland we have 195 town councils; 91 of these have prepared schemes and in the seven Highland counties I think two of the burghs have prepared schemes under the Act as already on the Statute book. There are two methods of assisting under the Act—one by grant and the other by loan. The limit of the grants or the capital value of the annual grants must not exceed two-thirds of the estimated cost of the work to be carried out or £100, whichever is the less. In the case of loans under the Act they must not exceed 90 per cent. of the value of the houses after construction. Where a grant is given under the Act in respect of a house certain conditions apply to the house for a period of 20 years. The sort of works which are being carried out with the aid of assistance are the provision of water supplies, sanitation, sculleries, larders and general works of improvements. No fewer than 31,870 houses in Scotland have already benefited from the Acts on the Statute Book and improvements have been carried out.

Mr. Quibell: How will it operate in the existing circumstances? Is it not a fact that, if expenditure over £100 has to be incurred in building, you must have a licence from the Minister of Works and Planning in order to carry it out?

Mr. Westwood: Yes, Sir, that is exactly what does happen. In a case where there is real need we grant a certificate. We have been doing that in Scotland and we want the Act to be continued because we are hopeful that the war will not go on another three years, up to which time the Act is extended.

Mr. Quibell: None of us will disagree with the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend in his hope that the war will not go on for another three years, but my experience shows that this legislation has become a dead letter. It is due entirely to war conditions. There are certain cases in which people have been displaced on account of houses being unfit for human habitation and we have had the utmost difficulty in obtaining a grant in order that the provisions of the Public Health Acts may be complied with. Can the Minister say whether, in the granting of these powers, if a local authority decide on a


certain course of action in this matter they will be supported against the Works and Planning Department if £150 is expended in order to bring a house into a proper state of habitation? In that case, can proceedings be taken by the local authorities to comply with the Act?

Miss Horsbrugh: With the leave of the House I should like to reply on that point. If the amount is £150, the matter will have to be referred to the Ministry of Health. But there have been a good many smaller claims. If the hon. Member will look at the figures, he will see that the Act has not been a dead letter, but that it has been extremely useful in respect of repairs.

Mr. Quibell: I have looked at the figures; and I see that Scotland has been more persistent than we have been in England.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

Bill, read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House, for the next Sitting Day.—[Major Sir James Edmondson.]

HOUSING (RURAL WORKERS) [MONEY].

Considered in Committee, under Standing Order No. 69.

[Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]

Resolved,
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to extend the time within which applications for assistance under the Housing (Rural Workers) Act, 1926, may be received by local authorities, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of such additional sums as may become payable thereout under section four of the said Act of 1926 by reason of any extension of the time within which an application for assistance must be received by the local authority in order for their power to give assistance under the said Act of 1926 to be exercisable."—(King's recommendation signified.)—[Miss Horsbrugh]

Resolution to be reported upon the next Sitting Day.

ISLE OF MAN (CUSTOMS) BILL.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House.—[Major Sir James Edmondson.]

Bill immediately considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed.

Orders of the Day — MEMBERS' PASSES (INSPECTION).

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [9th June],
That police officers on duty in the Palace of Westminster are hereby empowered, when so instructed by the Serjeant at Arms attending this House, to require Members to produce the passes issued to them.

Question again proposed.

The Lord Privy Seal (Sir Stafford Cripps): I must ask permission of the House to speak again on this Question. The Motion was moved by me some weeks ago. It was felt by the Government that, owing to the interest displayed by a number of Members—who I see are not present to-day—it would be a good thing to give them some time to consider this matter.

Mr. Quibell: Some of us are present.

Sir S. Cripps: Yes, but none of those hon. Members who spoke on the matter. I am not going to repeat what I said on the former occasion, but there are one or two points which were raised by hon. Members with which I might be allowed to deal. I made it. clear then that the only reason for putting down this Motion was that certain hon. Members had raised the question of whether the action of the police, which has been continuing since the autumn of 1940, was in accordance with the constitutional rights of Members of Parliament. It was thought desirable, therefore, to have the matter regularised. The Government were asked whether they would put down such a Motion in order to regularise the matter. The object of the Motion is to enable police officers on duty in the Palace of Westminster, at such times as they are so instructed by the Serjeant at Arms, to require Members to produce what are generally known as the blue passes, which have been issued to them, and which have been in use since 1940. These passes are purely convenient methods of identifying Members, and nothing more. It is not only a question of Members entering this House; sometimes Members may require to go into the precincts of the other Chamber. The police there on duty are not accustomed


to seeing all the Members of this House, and, without some means of identification, it is impossible for them to know whether hon. Members are authorised to pass or not.
In ordinary circumstances, the police officers on duty at this House, with the very skilled memories they have, are acquainted with all, or practically all, Members. These officers have been retained in their service here in order to facilitate the passage of Members about the House. But if Members are to have the advantage of rapid identification, instead of perhaps having to have someone to identify them, or having to produce some other paper, they should have some pass of this kind. The object of having an occasional—and very occasional—check on passes is merely to remind Members that it is advisable for them to carry these passes. It is only because it was questioned whether, strictly constitutionally, a Member could be so challenged by the police that it was thought better to put down a Motion which would give the Serjeant at Arms and the police the authority, on behalf of Members, to make this occasional investigation. It is, of course, only a temporary matter which is intended to operate during the present circumstances and not to be a permanent institution of the House. I think the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Leslie) raised the question of the possible inconvenience to Members, if it was a wet day—as apparently it was on the last occasion when this was done—in being stopped and having to put down their umbrellas and take off their coats and search in their pockets in the rain. There are now, as a matter of fact, shelters erected at the entrances, but in any case, even if there were not, of course in such circumstances it would be quite easy to arrange for it to be done just inside the entrance and not just outside. Therefore, there is nothing that need worry hon. Members about that.
Perhaps I might say a word about another matter that has been mentioned in association with this matter. An hon. Member asked me on a former occasion whether something could not be done about the re-opening of the subway to the Westminster underground station. That does not have very much reference to this particular matter, but as it was then raised, I might perhaps deal with it. I have asked the Chairman of the Fire

Committee, which is now charged by Order in Council with the defence and safety of the Palace of Westminster and of these Chambers, to look into the question whether it would be possible, with that degree of safety and security that is necessary both as regards air-raid precautions and defence, to make some alteration as regards the re-opening of the subway, and he has promised to do his best to meet the convenience of hon. Members in this respect. As the House knows, the Chairman of the Fire Committee is the Deputy-Chairman of Committees of this House. I am quite certain that he and his Committee will do everything that is possible to assist hon. Members in that way.
There are on the Order Paper one or two Amendments to this Motion, all of which rather tend to give the impression that those whose names are put to them desire to wipe out the utility of these passes. It is suggested, for instance, that there should be inserted the words "not recognised by such officers" after the words "to require Members." The object of checking the passes is to see that the Member has a pass if the policeman does not recognise him. If it were done only in the case of particular Members whom the police did not recognise, the whole object of checking would disappear. Secondly, it is desired to add at the end of the Motion the words "or otherwise to give satisfactory evidence of their identity." Of course, it would be quite satisfactory evidence of identity to a number of policemen to say "I am I," because the policeman would know the Member; but it would not enable the Member to be reminded of the fact that it is convenient for him, and for everyone, if he carries his pass with him in case he should require it. Therefore, I think none of those Amendments is necessary and that they would rather defeat the object which the House has in view, which is to provide a satisfactory means for this occasional check and to make quite clear that it is not any infringement of the constitutional rights of Members to come to the House, but that they are of their own free will, for their own convenience, making this arrangement by which they can periodically be reminded of the fact that they will pass more easily about the House, into the House and towards the other Chamber, if they wish to go there, if they have their passes with them.

Mr. Cocks: I beg to move, in line 2, to leave out "in," and to insert
at the entrances of.
This is the only Amendment to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Leader of the House did not refer. This Amendment has been moved to regularise the existing practice, which is that occasionally Members shall show their passes at the entrance to the House, but not in any other part of the building. I am sure it cannot be the wish of the Government that an hon. Member quietly walking along the corridors or in the Lobby should be suddenly pounced upon by a police officer and asked to produce his pass. It might have unfortunate consequences.
Take the case of those hon. Members who sit immediately behind the Treasury Bench and who add such dignity to our proceedings, who pass ordinary Members like me in the corridor with an air of disdain, their brows furrowed with the cares of Empire, and their pockets bulging with important State documents, which are sometimes, unfortunately, left behind in taxicabs. Suppose that one of those hon. Members is taking one of his constituents round the House, comporting himself with that air of dignity and importance which we would expect from such a pillar of the State. Suppose that a policeman suddenly comes up to him and asks for his pass. The lecture is interrupted and the great words are frozen on the hon. Member's lips, while he searches in his pockets, from which many things may emerge of a personal and intimate character, but not the pass. He has left that with a secret treaty somewhere in a public conveyance. Consider how humiliated this great man would be in such circumstances. In a moment he would fall from the dignity of near office to the humiliating position of being a mere intruder. He might even be asked by the policeman to leave the building, and his constituent with him. In his own constituency such an incident might have an adverse effect upon his position and also upon the position of the Government of which he forms so important a part. I feel certain that the Government, although strengthened, no doubt, by the rejection of the Motion of Censure last week, might in those circumstances sustain a check to their dignity which it is not advisable they should sustain in time of war. Therefore, I hope the Leader of the House, on second thoughts, in order to avert a

calamity of that kind, will hastily accept this Amendment.

Mr. Watkins: I beg to second the Amendment.

Sir Edward Campbell: As one of those unfortunate people referred to by the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Cocks), I think there has been a tremendous amount of fuss made about this Motion, which is a pretty obvious one. Every morning when I enter the Treasury at a quarter past nine, the guard turn out, salute me and say, "Good morning, Sir Edward; may we see your pass?" Invariably they see it. I think far too much fuss has been made about what is a very natural thing in time of war for the safety of the country. I remember that in the last war a brother of mine was harbour-master at a certain place, and every morning he had to sign a slip giving the pass word for the day. On one occasion he went out and forgot what it was, and when he came back he was ordered, "Halt, and give the password." An Irishman was on guard. My brother said, "I have clean forgotten what it is. Do you know who I am?—Commander Campbell." The guard said, "Sure and bedad, I know who you are, but you won't pass on until you give the password 'Tiger.'" The man was doing his duty, and I know that the police both inside and outside this House will do their duty.

Mr. Edmund Harvey: I think the House ought not to treat this just as a joking matter, in spite of the witty and delightful speech of the mover of the Amendment. The fact that the Government have given us so much time to consider this Motion shows that they realise it is a serious matter. It is almost unprecedented in our Parliamentary history, and for that very reason we must give it careful consideration. Looking back over the years, there is one instance which stands out in memory, which should make us hesitate in putting difficulties in the way of Members' access to the House of Commons. That is not the intention of the Government in moving this Motion, but a similar Motion may be made use of in very different times, and we have to look ahead and consider the danger of precedents. If we look in the Journals of the House we shall find a remarkable entry for 6th December, 1648, which


refers to the stopping of Members trying to enter the House of Commons. On that day, the record tells us:
The House, being informed, that divers Members coming to attend the House, were staid, and carried to the Queen's Court or Court of Wards Commanded the Serjeant to go to them to require them to attend he House. Mr. Serjeant brings answer that he signified to Members in the Queen's Court, viz., that it was the pleasure of the House that they should forthwith come to attend the House. The Members seemed willing to consent, but an officer then gave him this answer: That he could not suffer them to come till he had received his orders, which he had sent for.
The sequel is part of our English history. The House of Commons tried repeatedly to get those Members access again to the Chamber, but they were put off. A number of these Members never met again until after the close of the Protectorate. We do not want to see this Motion made a precedent for the future. Some day—we hope it may never come—some dictator might make very convenient use of it to exclude from the House Members who did not receive the kind of pass he issued to his own supporters. For that reason we have to look very carefully at the wording of this Motion. We were very glad the Lord Privy Seal made it clear that it is purely an emergency provision for the war, but I wish the Motion had expressed that in so many words. I think it would have given far more satisfaction if that had been the case. I hope the Government will consider this and other Amendments, in spite of the remarks which the Lord Privy Seal has made. From the point of view of the ordinary Member, such an Amendment would greatly improve the Motion, and I hope the Government will still see their way to accept it.

Mr. Viant: I think the resentment which is being shown by some hon. Members to this Motion is largely due to the conditions under which it was inaugurated. It was rather unfortunate. I remember in approaching the gates of the House with another hon. Member, who is rather more bulky than myself, we were challenged to show our passes. Needless to say we were surprised, and members of the general public outside were also somewhat surprised. It occurred to me that that procedure was in no way calculated to allay the apprehensive feelings prevailing at that time among the general public. They were of

course not properly entitled to draw deductions that anything unexpected was. occurring, or that anything of an alarming character was occurring, but none the less it did become a matter of concern among the general public. It was also unfortunate in the sense that the Member with whom I happened to be entering the gates although he had his pass was, owing to the rain, wearing extra garments and had a large number of pockets to go through before he produced it. He had to remain there in the rain, and I asked myself what reason there was for detaining Members at the gates of the House, when they might have been permitted to go into the courtyard under cover.
I think the procedure adopted at that time was largely responsible for the feeling of resentment among Members. Since then, there has been time to consider the matter, and to weigh up the reasons why this procedure should be adopted. In the main, I think, there is general agreement that in existing circumstances it is as well for Members to carry their passes, but we should not be challenged outside the gates. Members should be given the opportunity to enter the courtyard and should be challenged for their passes in the immediate precincts of the House. If that procedure were adopted, I am sure the Motion would go through unchallenged.

Mr. Bowles: It seems to me a curious coincidence that the first time this matter was raised by the Leader of the House I had just been to see the clerk who issues these passes. When I told him I wanted one, he asked me my name, which I gave, and he then handed me a pass. I was also given a military identity card, having secured a very flattering photograph of myself. On neither occasion was I identified. I am sure no one will think I am making any reflection on the officer of this House who issues these two passes, but it seems to me to be quite easy for any person—a member of the public or of this House—to go into that particular office and secure a pass which might enable him to come into the building. Will the Lord Privy Seal give an assurance that these passes are not a complete farce, and that there is some kind of check from time to time on those to whom they are issued?

Mr. Benson: From the practical point of view, taking the near view, I do not think the question of


whether we have passes or not or whether we have to show them or not, really matters. Certainly my view would not be influenced by whether we had to show them outside in the rain or in the building. I am very glad however that this Debate is taking place, and that the Government has been challenged. The hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. Harvey) recalled what took place to Members in 1648. There is a dignity which enshrines Parliamentary procedure, and curious rights which are unchallenged must not be interfered with. They have grown up during centuries, and our rights and privileges are not likely to be seriously challenged by any dictator in the future. If they are challenged by a dictator, I do not think they will protect us very much. But I feel that the ritual of Parliament, enshrining so much English history as it does, is something well worth protecting and well worth the short time we have spent on this Debate.

Mr. A. Bevan: I cannot for the life of me understand the bombastic pedantry which has led to this Motion being put upon the Paper. I know the origin of it. It started with officers demanding to see passes which were issued to Members during critical days. I did not sympathise with it at the time. It was quite nonsensical, because large numbers of people coming to the House were not members at all. If I wanted to be a fifth columnist I could plant 20 or 30 undesirable persons in the House without the slightest difficulty. If I wanted to do anything physically damaging in this place I know of no protection which has been devised which would prevent me from doing so. A large number of people come here every day and, therefore, if the purpose of the passes is to prevent unauthorised and undesirable people from approaching the precincts, our protection is wholly inadequate.
When a Member is elected, as far as I know he receives no summons at all. A General Election takes place and Parliament meets and he wanders up here. No one can stand in his way, because if anyone had the right to stand in his way something would have gone wrong with the Constitution. If a policeman can stand outside the House of Commons and say, "Where is your pass?" whom does

he represent? Mr. Speaker? What is the practical purpose of the Motion? Is it to stop undesirable people getting into the House of Commons in time of war who would do mischief? In that case, all the arrangements ought to be revised. On the other hand, is it to make quite certain that a person who represents himself as a Member of Parliament is really a Member of Parliament? That is a difficulty which has existed for centuries. You cannot plead the war as an excuse, because there has always been a difficulty. Individuals have not to prove their title to come to the House, and such a title never has been proved by a document issued by anyone.

Mr. A. G. Walkden: I always have a certificate from the returning officer that I have been elected.

Mr. Bevan: The fact is that in time of peace a Member of Parliament has not to prove his title to come here to any officer of the Crown. Therefore, if we are trying to deal with that difficulty, it is one that has always been in existence. If we are trying to deal with the difficulty of people coming here who ought not to be here, there are many other arrangements that would have to be made. I, therefore, want to know why, except for obstinacy, we are proceeding with the Motion at all. We ought to have a practical case for it. There is a case, of course. People ought not to wander in here anyhow. But this is an institution to which a large number of people have access. Six visitors came to see me today. They went into the office and got passes. They have not to show their birth certificates or anything of that sort. They said, "We want to see the Member for Ebbw Vale," and they came in. If they had been evilly disposed persons they would still have come in. The right hon. Gentleman is suggesting a form of procedure by which evilly disposed persons can be prevented from masquerading as Members of Parliament, because anyone can come in here. Therefore I do not understand why the Motion is introduced, except that the Government wishes to continue a practice which has no justification whatever. I seriously suggest that we ought not to pursue the matter any further.

Colonel Arthur Evans: I do not appreciate the apprehensions of the hon. Member. Strangers come into


the Palace of Westminster with permanent or temporary passes issued by authorities concerned, and they have to produce them to show that they have a right to be here. The hon. Member's constituents who visited him had to obtain temporary passes and they were only allowed to visit a certain part of the building, the outer Lobby. If they had attempted to go beyond that they would have been prevented by the police.

Mr. Bevan: Any person can go to the office and get a temporary pass and there is no means of knowing whether he has mischief in his mind or not.

Colonel Evans: Having obtained a pass, he can only go to the outer Lobby, where he is under the constant supervision of police officers in uniform and in civilian clothes. An efficient watch is kept on strangers frequenting the outer Lobby.

Earl Winterton: I think I ought to say that anyone can enter the House at night. I make no reflection on the police, but anyone who watches the system of control in the evening will see that anyone could walk in.

Colonel Evans: There is a large number of Members who, through the exigencies of war, are serving with the Forces, and who turn up only at infrequent intervals, sometimes in uniform and sometimes in civilian clothes. It might well be, as time passes, that the permanent police force, to whom all Members are known, would be transferred to other duties. Surely it is not unreasonable to ask that a Member of Parliament should have some proof of his identity, if he is not known to a policeman who has not been on duty here very long. Otherwise a person could represent himself as a Member of Parliament, or as a Peer, get access to the building and deposit a destructive instrument which would not be discovered till long afterwards.

Mr. Bevan: If that is the case and if any person can, with a temporary pass, enter the outer Lobby, my hon. Friend's Amendment is relevant, because all Members of Parliament will have to have their passes examined in the House itself. Therefore, in order to satisfy my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion we are to be pestered all day by officers asking us to show our passes.

Colonel Evans: I do not think that, in practice, that would happen.

Mr. Bevan: It could happen.

Colonel Evans: A number of things could happen, but in fact they never do. I cannot see my hon. Friend's point. I think that the public at large might get the impression that we are singularly faddy about this matter, because there are authorities all over the country who think it vital for the national security to have a system of passes. If the public get the idea that Members of Parliament are so conscious of their dignity that they are not prepared to show passes to a police officer when they are asked to do so in the interests of national security, we are not serving a useful purpose or extending the prestige of Parliament of which we are so proud.

Mr. Mathers: We are all speaking for ourselves as individuals in this matter and no question of party discipline or anything of that kind is involved. My reaction to this discussion is a simple one. I think that the points made by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) will be met to a considerable extent by the House agreeing to the pass system as an accepted thing. At the moment there is a pass system in operation that has not yet had the authority of the House, and if we give that authority, we regularise the position and put it on a proper basis.
We should keep in mind the difficulty, which does not seem to be very great in practice, of those who serve us in this House. I am sure that on many occasions there must be doubt in the minds of those who are entrusted with security and looking after things generally in the Palace of Westminster, when they see a Member with whom they are not very familiar. That difficulty has been accentuated in recent times by the large number of by-elections and of new Members who have come into the House. I believe that the membership has changed by about 50 per cent. since the General Election of 1935. The difficulty that lies upon the officials, police and others in the House after a General Election when there is a large number of new Members must be very great. We all recognise the ability which they show in so quickly recognising Members and being able even to name them.
We have many privileges in this House but I think the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale is one who rather prides himself upon not seeking to have privileges as a Member of Parliament that cannot be shared by his constituents. Our constituents, especially those engaged on war work, are called upon when passing into premises where they work and where they are well-known to produce evidence of their identity by showing cards. We are being asked to put ourselves in the same position. Who will say that in entering this place we are not entering a place where we are doing war work? I look upon the Palace of Westminster as a workshop where I do much of the work I have to do as a Member of Parliament, and the pass with which I have to prove my identity when challenged is the same, in substance, as that which is produced by a workman at his place of work during the war. I am glad to have the assurance put on record that this is purely a war emergency expedient, but I would like that to be stated in the Motion. I think that we shall be adding to the security of our own position as Members of Parliament in this building and simplifying and easing the position of those who so well attend to all our requirements by placing upon ourselves the duty of carrying proof of our identity, apart from our own looks, and being ready to show it when challenged.

Sir S. Cripps: I am afraid I am at a disadvantage compared with the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), but not so grave a disadvantage as he seems to think, because I believe he was here when the House took a step in May, 1940, which is the origin of what we are doing to-day. The hon. Member was here when the House at your request, Mr. Speaker, agreed to a series of provisions for the issue of passes for the entrance and admission of Members to the Palace of Westminster. Among them was a regulation that the inspection of all passes should be carried out regularly by the police and custodians, and all holders of passes were requested to co-operate with the authorities to that end. It was in May, 1940, that the House of Commons approved that measure.

Mr. Bevan: By Resolution?

Sir S. Cripps: By Mr. Speaker announcing it to the House and the House accepting

it. This Motion was produced because some Members, like the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. E. Harvey) thought there might possibly be some infringement of the constitutional rights of Members of the House. They desire to do what the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities wishes to do and to protect the rights of Members of the House. The manner in which that could be done best was to show that the House of Commons itself was controlling entirely its procedure. They therefore suggested to the Government that a Motion in this form should be put upon the Order Paper. I rather deprecate the hon. Member making an analogy between this and what happened in 1648. I think it might give the public outside a very wrong impression of what we are doing to-day.

Mr. Harvey: I do not suggest that the Government are acting as Colonel Pride was acting then, on the instructions of the Army, but that this may be a precedent later, possibly, for a dictator taking similar action to that of Pride.

Sir S. Cripps: I do not fear the dictator as much as the hon. Member does, but I may point out that the position is precisely the opposite. What we are doing is to secure that this matter remains entirely under the control of the House of Commons. We are not giving an opportunity to some outside person to come in and interfere with the House of Commons. We are securing that Members themselves regulate this matter by passing this Motion which will entitle their good and devoted servant, the Serjeant at Arms, to give certain instructions on their behalf from time to time to the police officers to make certain inspections of passes. That is the true view of this Motion, and that answers the question of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale——

Mr. Bevan: The Serjeant at Arms is a Crown appointment.

Sir S. Cripps: But he is the servant of the House of Commons. He is the servant of the House and obeys the directions of the House of Commons.

Mr. Bevan: It is a Crown appointment.

Sir S. Cripps: It may be a Crown appointment, but once appointed, he is the servant of the House of Commons and he


obeys the instructions which the House of Commons give him, and he can be removed by the House of Commons.

Mr. Bevan: Everybody can be removed.

Sir S. Cripps: Well, perhaps that is a very good thing. Let me come to the precise subject-matter of the Amendment. The hon. Member for Broxstowe (Mr. Cocks) wishes to insert instead of
on duty in the Palace of Westminster
the words
on duty at the entrances of the Palace of Westminster.
I would point out to him that his Amendment is misconceived to achieve the purpose he has in view. We are dealing with a certain type of police officer, to wit, police officers on duty in the Palace of Westminster—any of them, any who may have that particular duty to perform—and they are only empowered to examine passes when the servant of the House of Commons, the Serjeant at Arms, so instructs them, and he will, of course, give them their instructions when and where to do it. It is not a question of where the examination should take place.

Mr. Cocks: Surely the instruction would be only a general one such as "I expect you will do this to-morrow."

Sir S. Cripps: I should imagine that the instruction would be "The police officers at the entrances should examine the passes to-morrow"; but there is always this possibility, which I have already pointed out, that Members may be passing in unfamiliar parts of the Palace of Westminster, not in the immediate environment of this Chamber in which we are sitting, and where they may not be recognised. This provides a convenient means for them to pass anywhere in the Palace of Westminster where they may want to go, and any police officer there would be able to identify them by asking them for their passes. In that instance they would not feel that they were being challenged by an outside authority, because they were being challenged as a result of what their own servant had arranged for their own convenience. Therefore, I suggest that this Amendment really is not appropriate even to the object which the hon. Member has in view, and that the commonsense of the Serjeant at Arms, under the instructions of

the House of Commons, will achieve what he wishes and that we can safely leave it to the Serjeant at Arms to carry out what he knows to be the meaning and intention of this Motion.

Earl Winterton: There is one point which I should like to put to my right hon. and learned Friend. He knows that I support the Motion for the reasons I gave, and I do not agree that it has been a waste of time to discuss this matter. I do not think we are wasting time, as this is an important constitutional point. I understand from what the Lord Privy Seal has just said that he gives an assurance, so far as he can do it, that this instruction will be carried out lightly, from the nature of the case, and only occasionally, in order to see that Members have passes. I think it right to make this point, that I hope that will be the case, and that we shall not follow the ridiculous attitude which is adopted by the Metropolitan Police on duty at Government offices. They should not be above criticism, as they are so constantly held to be in this House. Let me give an example. I have a pass to go into the Foreign Office. Recently I went into Downing Street, not having been there for months. There were two constables on duty, both of them engaged in an earnest conversation. I held up my pass at a dis-stance as far as I am now from the right hon. and learned gentleman the Lord Privy Seal. Nobody could have read it at that distance. One of the policemen nodded to me. I went up to him and asked, "Does that mean that I can pass in?" He said, "Oh yes." I said, "But you have not seen my pass." He replied, "We know everybody by sight who goes to the Foreign Office." Then I said, "Would you mind telling me my name?" and he could not. He had not the least idea who I was. That such a thing could happen at a Government office shows that this can be a complete farce, and that it is a waste of man-power for the Metropolitan Police to have men on duty there. I hope it is clear that we shall not have here a state of affairs where anyone will be able to walk in on merely showing a piece of blue paper, whether it be a pass or not, the policeman merely nodding and letting him in.

Sir S. Cripps: I am sure the Metropolitan Police will take notice of what my Noble Friend has said, but he must remember that he looks so distinguished and


ambassadorial that anyone would admit him to the Foreign Office in any circumstances

Mr. Naylor: The statement made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman raises a fresh doubt in my mind as to the nature of the instructions to be given by the Serjeant at Arms to the police officers concerned. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said "Whatever instructions may be given from time to time" and he illustrated that by supposing that the instruction was issued on the next Sitting Day. One would imagine from the point of view of those who are arguing in favour of the Motion that the Serjeant at Arms would issue a general instruction that would apply for the duration of the war, but now we are told by the Leader of the House that the Serjeant at Arms can issue instructions from time to time. Just what does he mean by that? Are we never to know whether the police have been instructed or not, so that a Member will be unaware whether the police officer at the gates has had an immediate instruction from the Serjeant at Arms to demand the inspection of the passes? Will he clear up that point? How will the Serjeant at Arms proceed to give instructions to the police officers in regard to this demand for the production of passes by Members?

Sir S. Cripps: I imagine in accordance with commonsense. That is all I can say. The Serjeant at Arms, being instructed by the House of Commons in this duty, will no doubt exercise his commonsense in having an occasional check upon passes, and I think the House can safely leave this to so competent a servant as the Serjeant at Arms.

Mr. Naylor: Am I not right in concluding from that statement that the object of asking Members to produce their passes is to see that they are actually carrying their passes and not with reference to the safety of the place by preventing the admission of unauthorised persons?

Sir S. Cripps: Both.

Mr. Naylor: Surely it is not suggested that it is necessary that Members should have their passes? If they are known to be Members the passes are not required, and yet Members are to be put under the obligation of answering to the police officers when they do not actually know

whether the police officers have had instructions on that particular occasion to ask for the pass. In the last resort it is the police officer who will determine what the position of the Member is to be. He has an instruction from the Serjeant at Arms that, on a certain day of the week, he has to make a demand for the production of passes. Is it to be left to the discretion of the police officer whether or not he asks for the pass, or is the Serjeant at Arms to instruct him to ask for the pass of every Member who enters the gates of the Palace of Westminster? If he has not to ask for the production of the pass of every Member, it is at the discretion of the police officer. The object of those who are pushing this Motion is not served in that way, and no protection is afforded, except that the Member himself is put under the supervision of a police officer posted at the gate.

Dr. Russell Thomas: Suppose by chance a Member did not bring his pass on the day of the inspection, would the Member be excluded from this House, although he might be easily identified?

Sir S. Cripps: All the points raised have been covered in the Debate and also in the course of what I have said. If a Member has not his pass with him, he will do just as he did in the days before the pass. He will have to identify himself in some way. The policeman may know him, he may have a friend with him, or he may have some document.

Mr. Cove: A friend to certify that we are Members of this House?

Sir S. Cripps: No; but if we have the police here in order to guard the House and policemen to see that unauthorised persons are not allowed entrance, they must have some means to identify the authorised persons.

Mr. Speaker: I have allowed a general discussion on the first Amendment. We must not have a discussion which includes all the Amendments, and then have a discussion on the Amendments afterwards.

Mr. Cocks: Do I understand, Sir, that you give a definite Ruling that there is not to be a separate Debate on the Third Amendment?

Mr. Speaker: Certainly not if we have a Debate now.

Mr. Naylor: Am I to understand that the Amendment in my name is not to be called? If so, have I sacrificed the opportunity of moving the Amendment by having already spoken?

Mr. Speaker: I thought the hon. Member had already made the speech that he was going to make on the Amendment.

Mr. Naylor: No, Sir. It would not be respectful of me to take exception to anything which you say, but, in reply, I would point out that I have many more speeches to make yet.

Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: Far be it from me to stand between my hon. Friend and the numerous speeches that he seeks to make, but a difficulty arises in my mind, particularly on the first Amendment, and I hope the Leader of the House will be able to elucidate it. Hon. Members would be prepared to concede the right of the constabulary to restrict entrance into the precincts, to see that no unauthorised person got into the precincts. Everybody is prepared to allow that in present circumstances those who seek to enter should justify their demand by the production of a pass or some other authenticated identification. What concerns me and other hon. Members is this. If the general right sought by the Leader of the House is conceded, it would be

Division No. 16.]
AVES.



Adamson, W. M. (Cannock)
Dobbie, W.
Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.


Albery, Sir Irving
Doland, G. F.
Lawson, J. J.


Ammon, C. G.
Dugdale, Major T. L. (Richmond)
Leslie, J. R.


Bartlett, C. V. O.
Edmondson, Major Sir J.
Linstead, H. N.


Baxter, A. Beverley
Elliot, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. W. E.
Lipson, D. L.


Beattie, F.
Entwistle, Sir C. F.
Lloyd, C. E. (Dudley)


Beauchamp, Sir B. C.
Erskine-Hill, A. G.
Lloyd, Major E. G. R. (Renfrew, E.)


Beaumont, Maj. Hn. R. E. B. (P'ts'h)
Etherton, Flight-Lieut. Ralph
Lyle, Sir C. E. Leonard


Bennett, Sir P. F. B, (Edgbaston)
Evans, Colonel A. (Cardiff, S.)
McCallum, Major D.


Benson, G.
Evans, E. (Univ. of Wales)
Mathers, G.


Blair, Sir R.
Everard, Sir W. Lindsay
Morgan, R. H. (Stourbridge)


Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C.
Fyfe, Major Sir D. P. M.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.


Boulton, W. W.
Gammons, Capt. L. D.
Paling, W.


Bower, Norman (Harrow)
Gales, Major E. E.
Palmer, G. E. H.


Bracken, Rt. Hon. B,
Glyn, Sir R. G. C.
Peaks, O.


Brocklebank, Sir C. E. R.
Gower, Sir R. V.
Peters, Dr. S. J.


Brooke, H.
Green, W. H. (Deptford)
Petherick, Major M.


Cadogan, Major Sir E.
Gridley, Sir A. B.
Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.


Campbell, Sir E. T.
Grigg, Rt. Hon. Sir P. J. (Cardiff, E.)
Ponsonby, Col. C. E.


Cary, R. A.
Halt, W. G.
Radford, E. A.


Cazalet, Major V. A. (Chippenham)
Hannon, Sir P. J. H.
Reed, Sir H. S. (Aylesbury)


Challen, Flight-Lieut. C.
Harris, Rt. Hon. Sir P. A.
Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham (St. M.)


Charleton, H. C.
Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)
Reid, W. Allan (Derby)


Colegate, W. A.
Henderson, T. (Tradeston)
Robertson, D. (Streatham)


Colman, N. C. D.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Robertson, Rt. Hon. Sir M. A. (M'ham)


Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)
Hopkinson, A.
Sanderson, Sir F. B.


Courthope, Col. Rt. Hon. Sir G. L.
Hard, Sir P. A.
Savory, Professor D. L.


Cripps, Rt. Hon. Sir Stafford
Jarvis, Sir J. J.
Schuster, Sir G. E.


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Jeffreys, Gen. Sir G. D.
Scott, Donald (Wansbeck)


Culverwell, C. T.
Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)
Scott, Lord William (Ro'b'h &amp; Selk'k)


Davidson, Viscountess (H'm'l H'mst'd)
Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Shepperson, Sir E. W.


De Chair, Capt. S. S.
Kerr, Sir John Graham (Scottish U'S)
Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)


De la Bère, R.
Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet Sir R.
Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)


Denville, Alfred
Kirby, B. V.
Spens, W. P.

possible for members of the constabulary stationed in the Lobby to say to a Member, when a Division had been called: "You are not allowed to go through unless you produce your pass."

Sir S. Cripps: The hon. Member is putting a perfectly fantastic point. It would have to be done on instructions from the Serjeant at Arms so to do. Does the hon. Member imagine that the Serjeant at. Arms would give such an instruction as he suggests?

Mr. Hughes: I am prepared to concede that point at once, but within the terms of the Motion it is possible that it could be done.

Sir S. Cripps: No, it is not.

Mr. Hughes: The only check is that the Serjeant at Arms would not give such an instruction. We are debating the rights of Members, and I still submit that they should be protected, not only in terms of what would follow in practice but in terms of what is possible under the terms of the Motion. Those terms should be such as to make that impossible.

Question put, "That the word" in "stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 127; Noes, 17.

Storey, S.
Walkden, A. G. (Bristol, S.)
Wickham, Lt. Col. E. T. R.


Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)
Walkden, E. (Doncasler)
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Strickland, Capt. W. F.
Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)
Wilson, C. H.


Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Wardlaw-Milne, Sir J. S.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Sueter, Hoar-Admiral Sir M. F.
Webbe, Sir W- Harold
Womersley, Rt. Hon. Sir W.


Summers, G. S.
Wedderburn, H. J. S.
Wootton-Davies, J. H.


Sutcliff[...], H.
Westwood, J.



Tate, Mavis C.
White, Sir Dymoke (Fareham)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)
White, H. Graham (Birkenhead, E.)
Captain McEwen and Mr. Pym.


Touche, G. C.
Whiteley, W. (Blaydon)





NOES.


Adams, D. (Consett)
Granville, E. L.
Thomas, I. (Keighley)


Barr, J.
Hardie, Agnes
Viant, S. P.


Bellenger, F. J.
Hughes, R. M.
Walking, F. C.


Bevan, A.
Maclean, N. (Govan)



Cooks, F. S.
Naylor, T. E.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Cove, W. G.
Shinwell, E.
Mr. Harvey and Mr. Bowles.


Driberg, T. E. N.
Stokes, R. R.

Mr. Bevan: On a point of Order. May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman proposes to pursue this Motion any further, because there are other Amendments on the Order Paper and there is a very considerable amount of disquiet about the situation? The Government are reinforced in the Division Lobby, as usual, by a large number of Members who have not heard the Debate, who do not know what they are voting about, and who follow because the Government is taking a certain line. May I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that it is not a dignified procedure for Parliament to be occupied with a Motion of this kind?

Mr. Denville: On a point of Order. I should like it to be made clear whether the Serjeant at Arms is a servant of the Crown or a servant of this House. My information is that he is a servant of this House. I should also like it to be made clear that whenever the passes are called for, it will be subject to the decision of Mr. Speaker, who is a servant of this House and is the custodian of our rights and privileges.

Mr. Speaker: The position of the Serjeant at Arms was explained to the House a few minutes ago. I think the hon. Member was here at the time.

Mr. Naylor: I beg to move, in line 3, after "Members," to insert "not recognised by such officers."
Before proceeding to the argument, may I congratulate my right hon. Friend on having saved the Government a very serious dereat? I know of course that he is not personally responsible for all this trouble. The Noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton), on the last occasion when we were discussing this

matter, referred to himself as the fons et origo mali, a description which fits him most admirably. When I raised the question as to the method by which the Serjeant at Arms would instruct the police, the right hon. Gentleman gave-me a reply, as to which much depends as to the practicability and desirability of this Amendment being included in the Motion. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, when he opened the discussion, lumped all three Amendments together, and said there was no necessity for-them. My recollection is that he used no argument against, and raised no objection to, the Amendment which I am now moving. I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to say just what is the reason for objecting to this Amendment. Either all the Members without exception have to show their passes if the Serjeant at Arms issues an instruction to the police, or a general instruction will be issued, under which the police will act within their own discretion as to whether they ask for the passes or not. Hitherto, it has been at the discretion of the police, subject to overhead demand, and I want to know what sense there is in a police officer coming to a Member whom he knows to be a Member and asking him to prove whether he is a Member or not by producing a pass.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that these passes were issued for the convenience of Members. I agree that that is the object of the pass and that if there was a crowd on the other side of Whitehall, and a Member found some difficulty in getting to the gates, the police would assist him, and the pass would protect him all along Whitehall if necessary. For that reason the pass would be a convenience to Members, but if it becomes an


inconvenience, if a Member is to be stopped at the gate because a policeman asks him to produce that pass, then Members are at least entitled to ask the question—I do not think Members need stand on their dignity in the matter—whether the carrying of "the pass is to be at the option of the police officer at the gate, placing him in the position of supervising the conduct of a Member, even though the instruction comes from the Serjeant at Arms. I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman will answer the question how this instruction is to be given, because on that depends a good deal whether or not we favour the existence of the pass. If he tells us that there is to be a general instruction on which the police will act when they think necessary, as individual officers, then, I say that this Amendment is justified. It is the duty of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to tell the House what object is served by a police officer asking a Member for his pass which is his means of identification when the police officer already knows that he is a Member. One has to admit that a new Member might, possibly, not be identified. Even an old Member might not be identified by a new police officer. In those cases the production of a pass on a demand for its production is perfectly justified.
I would say that, as far as I am concerned, I can conceive of circumstances in which the pass would be useful, but I certainly object to being challenged by a police officer who knows that I am a Member to see whether or not I am carrying my pass. The Motion does not say that a Member of this House must carry the pass. It merely says that on the demand of a police officer the pass must be produced. I say that it is not in conformity with the dignity of the House that a Member should be called upon by a police officer to show his pass without any necessity whatever existing. I do not wish to say anything about the first or the third Amendments. I wish to plead for my own Amendment, and to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to consider it on its merits apart from the other two. I am the more interested in this, because having searched for possible objections to these words I fail to find any and certainly the right hon. and learned Gentleman provided us with no objections to it. If he wants another majority on this I should advise him to consider what his objections to the Amendment are, and to

state them to the House. Otherwise, I shall have to divide the House on the Amendment.

Mr. Bowles: I beg to second the Amendment.

Sir S. Cripps: I am afraid I am in danger of offending against the Rules of the House by making a repetitive speech, because on more than one occasion already I have covered the points which the hon. Member has put to me. If I may put the matter again quite shortly, this Motion does not purport to lay down a method of Members' passes. That was done by the House in May, 1940. The passes were then issued, and have been in the possession of Members, or should have been in the possession of Members, ever since. At the same time it was laid down that the inspection of passes should be carried out regularly by the police and custodians. That inspection was, of course, for the obvious reason which arises in connection with every issue of passes that some form of check must be carried out from time to time to see that people have not lost them, and can still produce them if necessary. This Motion deals only with the question of whether the police are to be given authority by this House to carry out this inspection.
The hon. Member said he did not wish it to be in the discretion of the police to stop a Member and that that is something which the House should control. I entirely agree with him, but if his Amendment is carried it will be left entirely to the discretion of the police, who will be able to say, "I do not recognise this man. Shall I ask him for his pass?" and whether they recognise him or not is a matter for the police, and no one else. The object of this Motion is that the police shall not have power to make any inspection of passes unless instructed by the Serjeant at Arms who will, in accordance with the Regulation' which has already been approved by the House, order from time to time an inspection of all passes carried by all Members.

Mr. Naylor: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain why it should be necessary to issue instructions from time to time? What sort of occasion has he in mind?

Sir S. Cripps: The words "from time to time," are used in order to show that it does not relate only to one occasion,


and that the intention was that it should be done as occasion might offer, every six months, or once every year, or whatever it might be, depending upon how long the war lasts. The Serjeant at Arms will no doubt say, "It is about time we had another check-up to see whether Members have got their passes, or have lost them or mislaid them." [Interruption.] Obviously the Serjeant at Arms acts through Mr. Speaker, and Mr. Speaker represents the House. That is the machinery by which the message would pass, and if anyone wishes to do so, he can question his actions in the House. Therefore, the form in which the Motion now stands indicates the form in which the examination will be carried out for all Members. It will not be left to the discretion of the police and will only be carried out on such occasions as the Serjeant at Arms gives instructions. This, no doubt, will be from time to time as he thinks fit or necessary, acting as the servant of the House in order to perform what the House has desired to be performed—the inspection of passes by the police or custodians.

Mr. Naylor: What is the object of the inspection of the passes?

Sir S. Cripps: I am sorry to have to repeat myself. I have said it, I think, on half a dozen occasions. The object is in order to see that Members still have their passes, that they have not lost them or that the passes have not been stolen.

Mr. Naylor: Is it to see whether we are good boys?

Sir S. Cripps: No, not to see whether they are goad boys, but to remind Members of the fact that passes should be carried and to see whether they still have them. This is done, as far as I know, in every case where passes are issued. There is a periodical check, as there must be, unless you wish passes to get disseminated all over the world.

Mr. Bevan: Surely the point could be met by a very simple device. Passes are issued to Members of Parliament. Periodical inspection takes place to find out, not whether a Member is still a Member of Parliament, but whether he still has his pass. It may easily happen that he has mislaid his pass or that some evilly-disposed person has got hold of it. That

could be solved by calling in all the passes. Do not issue the passes. Why have the passes at all?

Sir S. Cripps: This Motion does not deal with the issue of passes. If an hon. Member thinks that regulations, which have been in force now for two and a quarter years, should be withdrawn he should put a Motion down on the Paper to that effect.

Mr. Bevan: The Lord Privy Seal has misled the House—I am sure not deliberately—on several occasions. He has told us that he does not want to repeat himself. May I be permitted to put him right at once? There are no regulations issued by the House and for goodness sake do not let us hear it again. The right hon. Gentleman has said this half a dozen times. The House of Commons has issued no regulations about passes. Mr. Speaker in 1940 in circumstances of exceptional difficulty—there was no decision by the House and no notice given—announced to the House that certain steps had been taken, in the unusual circumstances arising at the time. It is easy for hon. Members to envisage that Mr. Speaker was faced with circumstances of exceptional delicacy at that time. These are not regulations but arrangements that were made at that time.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is not dealing with the Amendment which is now before the House. The Amendment does not relate to the necessity of passes at all, but deals with the question of whether the police should ask for passes to be shown by Members not recognised by them.

Mr. Bevan: I was attempting to answer the argument that the right hon. Gentleman had put in reply to the Amendment.

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman was answering a question which had been put to him.

Mr. Bevan: The Amendment is that the police officers should be empowered to request the production of passes only if they cannot recognise a Member of Parliament as being a Member of Parliament. That is the purpose of the Amendment and I am addressing myself to that point. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that the purpose of demanding the pass is not to identify the Member as a


Member of Parliament, but to prove that the Member has a pass. Why do you want to prove whether the Member has a pass? Because he might have lost it. Then call in the passes and the danger of the pass having got into unworthy hands is removed. Otherwise, why does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept the Amendment? All this discussion is on the assumption that it is the House which is deciding a certain thing. The House is deciding nothing of the kind. The Government are deciding it. The idea that the House is, in any collective capacity, asking for this sort of thing is a fiction. The Government Whips are on and the Government Members crowd into the Lobbies to support propositions which are really fantastic. Not a Member who has risen in his place—not even the right hon. Gentleman, who falls back on what happened in 1940—has justified this fantastic procedure of having passes. It would be much more appropriate to the dignity of the House if the Government withdrew the Motion which has no priority in the Constitution and no justification in practice. I am going to support the Amendment, and, if it is not accepted, I hope that my hon. Friend will press it to a Division.

Sir Percy Harris: The argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) in objecting to passes altogether is logical, but if we are to have passes, all Members must be subject democratically to the regulations. There cannot be any differentiation between one Member and another. It would be very offensive for my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment to be recognised and the police not to recognise me and to insist upon my pass being shown. In a democratic institution like ours, if we are to have passes, every Member should be under the same kind of arrangement.

Mr. Leslie: It would be creating not only an anomaly but considerable ill-feeling. There are something like 90 new Members in the House now, and a number of them may not be recognised by the police. Supposing there was a downpour of rain, the police might recognise an old Member, who would be in a privileged position and could pass through, but another Member might have to produce his pass. I think it is entirely wrong.

Major Wise: I am at some loss because I, unfortunately, do not possess a pass. I was not in this House when Mr. Speaker's Ruling was made, and I have not been able to obtain a pass. I endeavoured to surrender my military pass for the one issued to Members of Parliament. I was told that I might get a political one, and as I stoutly refused to part with my only identity until I got a new one, I am presumably one of those covered by the Amendment. Maybe my only chance of getting into the House would be to be recognised by the policeman. My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) has raised the point as to the object of producing passes. The object is presumably to see that Members have still got them. I still fail to see why a Member should have to have a pass. We are told by my right hon. and learned Friend that if we have not got our pass, we can still get into the House, that we can still walk about without let or hindrance. All that happens is that we might have to produce what we could rightly be asked to produce, our national registration card. I would like my own personal position to be made clear and to know whether or not I ought to have a pass, what would happen to me if I did not have it, and whether I should take immediate steps to procure that which apparently I should have had in May, 1940.

Sir S. Cripps: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will go to the office of the Serjeant at Arms at once, or at any time, he will be given his pass.

Mr. Bevan: What for?

Sir S. Cripps: In order to carry a pass which will facilitate his movements in certain circumstances about the Palace of Westminster.

Major Wise: Shall I have to identify myself to the Serjeant at Arms or anybody in order to get a pass?

Sir S. Cripps: The hon. and gallant Member had better go and see the Serjeant at Arms.

Sir Stanley Reed: I think if my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Smethwick (Major Wise) pursues his inquiry a little further, he will find that he has raised a difficulty which does


not exist and never did exist. All I wish to say briefly is this: The House of Commons has passed Regulations drastically affecting the lives of millions of our fellow subjects, and the House expects that they will obey them. How much will they respect this House, which, after passing those Regulations, makes all this fuss about the small Regulations concerning ourselves? I would accept, honour and obey this Regulation and any other brought forward by those who are really responsible if they thought it was really necessary for the security of this House.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Cocks: I beg to move ——

Division No. 17.]
AYES.



Adamson, W. M. (Cannock)
Gower, Sir R. V.
Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham (St. M.)


Albery, Sir Irving
Grigs, Rt. Hon. Sir P. J. (Cardiff, E.)
Reid, W. Allan (Derby)


Aske, Sir R. W.
Groves, T. E.
Rickards, G. W.


Bartlett, C. V. O.
Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)
Roberts, W.


Beamish, Bear-Admiral T. P.
Hannon, Sir P. J. H.
Robertson, D. (Streatham)


Beattie, F.
Harris, Rt. Hon. Sir P. A.
Robertson, Rt. Hn. Sir M. A. (M'ham)


Beauchamp, Sir B. C.
Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)
Sanderson, Sir F. B.


Beaumont, Maj. Hn. R. E. B. (P'tsmth)
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Scott, Donald (Wansbeck)


Bennett, Sir P. F. B. (Edgbaston)
Hurd, Sir P. A.
Scott, Lord William (Ro'b'h &amp; Selk'k)


Benton, G.
James, Wing-Comdr. A. W. H.
Shapperson, Sir E. W.


Blair, Sir R.
Jarvis, Sir J. J.
Smith, Braceweil (Dulwich)


Bower, Norman (Harrow)
Jeffreys, General Sir G. D.
Spens, W. P.


Boyce, H. Leslie
Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)
Storey, S.


Brocklebank, Sir C. E. R.
Keeling, E. H.
Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)


Brooke, H.
Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Strickland, Capt. W. F.


Cadogan, Major Sir E.
Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Campbell, Sir E. T.
Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet Sir R.
Sutcliffe, H.


Cazalet, Major V. A. (Chippenham)
Kimball, Major L.
Tasker, Sir R. I.


Charleton, H. C.
Lawson, J. J.
Tate, Mavis C.


Colman, N. C. D.
Leslie, J. R.
Touche, G. C.


Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)
Linstead, H. N.
Viant, S. P.


Courthope, Col. Rt. Hon. Sir G. L.
Lipson, D. L.
Walkden, A. G. (Bristol, S.)


Cripps, Rt. Hon. Sir Stafford
Lloyd, C. E. (Dudley)
Walkden, E. (Doncaster)


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Lloyd, Major E. G. R. (Renfrew, E.)
Walker, J.


Culverwell, C. T.
Lucas, Major Sir J. M.
Watkins, F. C.


Davidson, Viscountess (H'm'l H'mst'd)
Lyle, Sir C. E. Leonard
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


De Chair, Capt. S. S.
McCallum, Major D.
Westwood, J.


Denville, Alfred
Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)
White, H. Graham (Birkenhead, E.)


Dugdale, Major T. L. (Richmond)
Mathers, G.
Whiteley, W. (Blaydon)


Edmondson, Major Sir J.
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.
Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.


Elliot, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. W. E.
Morgan, R. H. (Stourbridge)
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Entwistle, Sir C. F.
Mott-Radcliffe, Captain C. E.
Wilson, C. H.


Erskine-Hill, A. G.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Etherton, Flight.-Lieut. Ralph
Paling, W.
Womersley, Rt. Hon. Sir W.


Evans, Colonel A. (Cardiff, S.)
Palmer, G. E. H.
Woodburn, A.


Evans, E. (Univ. of Wales)
Peake, O.
Wootton-Davies, J. H.


Fyfe, Major Sir D. P. M.
Petherick, Major M.



Gammans, Capt. L. D.
Pym, L. R.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Gates, Major E. E.
Quibell, D. J. K.
Mr. J. P. L. Thomas and


George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)
Radford, E. A.
Captain McEwen.


Glyn, Sir R. G. C.
Reed, Sir H. S. (Aylesbury)





NOES.


Adams, D. (Consett)
Granville, E. L.
Shinwell, E.


Barr, J.
Hardie, Agnes
Sorensen, R. W.


Bevan, A.
Harvey, T. E.



Cooks, F. S.
Hughes, R. M.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Cove, W. G.
Maclean, N. (Govan)
Mr. Bowles and Mr. Ivor


Driberg, T. E. N.
Martin, J. H.
Thomas.


Garro Jones, G. M.
Naylor, T. E.

Resolved
That police officers on duty in the Palace of Westminster are hereby empowered, when

so instructed by the Serjeant at Arms attending this House, to require Members to produce the passes issued to them.

Mr. Speaker: I have not selected the hon. Member's further Amendment.

Mr. Cocks: I am sorry you are not calling my Amendment, Mr. Speaker. Can I speak on the Main Question?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member moved the first Amendment and has exhausted his right to speak on the Main Question.

Mr. Cocks: But if a Member speaks to an Amendment, has he not the right to speak on the Main Question?

Mr. Speaker: Not if he moved the Amendment.

Main Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 119; Noes, 16.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932.

Resolved,
That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, extending Section 1 of the Act to the Urban District of Hoylake, a copy of which was presented to this House on 7th July, be approved."—[Mr. Peake.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Orders of the Day — ARMY OFFENCES (SENTENCES).

Motion made and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Major Sir James Edmondson.]

Mr. Robertson: On 23rd June I asked the Secretary of State for War the following Question:
Whether he has considered the case of an officer convicted of stealing War Department petrol, and sentenced by general court-martial, to be dismissed from His Majesty's service, which was confirmed, and at once reduced to a severe reprimand; and, to prevent injustice, whether he will reconsider in the light of this case, that of the Streatham non-commissioned officer in the same unit convicted of a similar, but lesser, offence at about the same time, who was put under close arrest for 21 days prior to court-martial, and thereafter reduced to the ranks, and compelled to serve a sentence of three months in detention barracks? 
My right hon. Friend replied:
Both these cases were tried by court-martial, and the sentence in each case was reviewed by the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Command. I do not feel that I should be justified in interfering with the decisions of the competent military authorities.
I then asked:
Is there not something wrong with a system which punishes the corporal so severely and lets the officer off so lightly?
My right hon. Friend replied:
The hon. Member is assuming that the circumstances were the same in each case. So far as I can judge, and certainly so far as the responsible authorities have judged, the circumstances were not parallel."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd June, 1942; cols. 1796–7, Vol. 380.]
The corporal is one of my constituents. Early in April his father, who is also my constituent, consulted me about his son's case. The corporal is a pre-war Territorial volunteer, who served in France, and escaped by Dunkirk. He has an excellent character. He has a motor-cycle which he mainly uses for visiting his wife on short leave. One day he was stopped by his major and asked whether he had War Department petrol in his tank. The

corporal at once admitted that he had, and said that he had got it the previous night because his tank was empty and it was some considerable distance to the filling station. He was placed under close arrest for 36 days—I made a mistake in saying 21 days.

Mr. Denville: What was the age of this major?

Mr. Robertson: Twenty-one years. The corporal was court-martialled and convicted of stealing War Department petrol to the value of 3s. 7d. He was sentenced to be reduced to the ranks and to serve six months in detention barracks, and 3s. 7d., the cost of the petrol, was stopped from his pay. The finding of the court-martial was confirmed, except that the sentence of six months was reduced to three months. The father, who was a citizen soldier in the last war and was severely wounded in the lungs, took the view that the sentence was much too severe. I shared that view, and I at once approached the Secretary of State for War, on the telephone and in writing, urging that the case should be reviewed immediately, with a view to releasing the corporal from detention. I am sure that the detention barracks system of punishment was not devised to deal with the stealing of 3s. 7d. worth of petrol. I drew the attention of the Secretary of State to the system of "scrounging," or "winning," things in the Army, and pointed out that the soldier does not regard such a matter in the same light as civilians do. Much of the soldier's pay is in kind. Everything is provided for him, including free railway passes home four times a year. It was not a heinous offence to take petrol in order to get home on a fifth occasion. Hon. Members get free railway passes to their constituencies every week; I wonder how we should feel if we got home only once every three months.
There is a petrol shortage; but, even now, taxis can be obtained to get to race meetings or to dog meetings. I passed the White City the other Saturday, and there were rows of taxicabs outside. They can be hired in order to go to the theatre. Anyone owning a blood mare can get petrol to see it in training or at a race meeting. A friend of mine in Buckinghamshire has a petrol allowance for that purpose. People at Maidenhead recently complained that they could not get seats


in public service vehicles because there were so many Service men using the vehicles. Two large motor buses were immediately put on to take the Service personnel back to barracks. That does not indicate such a serious shortage of petrol as would be suggested by this sentence. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air, in an interview with an American newspaper correspondent recently, said that he intended to fight for an allowance of petrol to enable his pilots to get home, just as this corporal wanted to get home. I find it difficult to reconcile those facts with the savage sentence passed on my constituent.
I recollect that appeals were being made in the House, and published throughout the country, to motorists to give lifts to men of the Forces. Like other hon. Members, I have given lifts to many men. In the majority of cases, these fellows were on 48 hours' leave, were going home, had not a railway warrant, and were hitch-hiking. To the great credit of the British public, they responded to those appeals. The young man about whom I am speaking was going home, but he was using two gallons of petrol which he was not entitled to take and which he ought to have been punished for taking, but not punished in this way—36 days under close arrest awaiting trial, three months in detention barracks, reduced to the ranks, with the stoppage of pay involved. The Joint Under-Secretary of State for War looked into the case. He was most sympathetic and I think he shared my views, but something occurred which threw the case on to his senior, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War, whom I approached in February, when I learned that the case had passed from the hands of the Joint Under-Secretary of State. The Secretary of State wrote to me as follows:
I have now had an opportunity of looking into the case of Corporal—— Your suggestion that I should intervene to have this soldier's sentence remitted raises an important question of principle. As you probably know, the whole tendency in the Army nowadays is towards decentralisation, and this tendency has been actively encouraged by the War Office, and I had always understood that it had the full support of the House. The sphere in which decentralisation has been carried out in the last 12 months includes court martial procedure among other things, although the powers under which this particular sentence was promulgated were already decentralised before the recent reforms. I should, therefore,

be most reluctant to interfere with a sentence which had already been reviewed and promulgated by the proper military authority unless I were absolutely convinced that it was essential to do so in the interests of the Army—
not of the individual, but of the Army—
I find it quite impossible to take this view in the present case. It was represented to the War Office last summer that large quantities of petrol were being stolen and in general the Army took the same view of this offence as you put forward in your letter. An Army Council Instruction was accordingly issued bringing to the notice of all ranks that the use of War Department petrol in private vehicles was forbidden and that anyone caught using it was liable to be tried by court martial for stealing and if found guilty to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment. This was published three times in unit orders. There can, therefore, be no question but that the Army has had full warning of the way in which cases of this sort would be treated. I should also point out that Corporal was a non-commissioned officer in a unit which had to deal with large quantities of petrol. Pilfering of petrol in such a unit is a very serious matter and the commission of the offence by a non-commissioned officer is doubly serious. In the circumstances I am afraid that I cannot accept your suggestion that I should overrule the findings of the court.
I put a question about the matter in the House, and although the reply was unsatisfactory, I felt it was undesirable to carry the matter further. Right from the beginning I have struggled to avoid publicity. I am so proud of the British Army that I do not want to reveal details of a case which must reflect on the administration of the Army. For that reason I decided to drop the matter, although I realised that the corporal would have to carry the stain of this conviction and imprisonment with him to the end of his days, and that if any civilian employer asked him if he was in trouble in the Army, he would be obliged to confess his crime, and it might cloud the whole of his future career. Shortly after the corporal was released from prison, he called at the House, with his father, to thank me for my unsuccessful efforts, and I then earned with amazement that an officer in the same company had committed a similar but greater offence at the same time, had been tried and convicted by a court martial, and sentenced to be dismissed from His Majesty's Service. The G.O.C.—presumably the same officer as dealt with the corporal—confirmed the findings of the court martial, but he altered the sentence from dismissal to a severe reprimand. When this extraordinary decision was published in company


orders, a number of the men were naturally indignant at the treatment meted out to the corporal, and they approached the serjeant-major and asked whether he could explain the extraordinary operation of the Army Act which caused a noncommissioned officer to be dealt with with such severity and an officer with such leniency. The sergeant-major could offer no explanation. It was quite beyond his powers.
I reopened the matter with the War Office, and I told them I intended putting down a Question, and I did so with two motives in mind. Firstly, so that there should be ample time to prepare their case, and, secondly, I hoped that the Secretary of State for War would see me privately and take some steps to recompense the corporal, by expunging his case from the records, or by some other action, and at the same time give me an assurance that in future justice in the Army would be administered in a proper manner. After waiting a month, during which time he made no approach to me, I put down the Question which I have read to the House. Perhaps it is just as well that the matter has been ventilated, because, if sufficient notice is taken of this case, it can only be for the ultimate benefit of the Army. No system in which injustice applies can ever succeed. Unlike an N.C.O. or a private, an officer receives all his income in cash.

The Secretary of State for War (Sir James Grigg): Would the hon. Member say to whom he has given notice that he was going to put down a Question, because he has given none to me?

Mr. Robertson: My right hon. Friend is not very well informed about his own Department, and, if he will listen to what I have to say, I will tell him. I told his Under-Secretary, his own private secretary, and the Under-Secretary's private secretary, and I have had endless telephone conversations with his Department. I was dealing with the fact that an officer, unlike a, soldier who receives so little in cash and so much in kind, gets everything in cash. He pays for his food and uniform, and receives a special allowance to enable him to do so. An offence, therefore, of stealing an Army commodity, if committed by an officer, must be more serious than when it is committed by another rank, receiving nearly everything in kind and so little in cash.
As an officer of the last war, I should have thought that any officer convicted by a court-martial of theft would automatically be dismissed from the Service. A few nights ago, in one of the London "evening newspapers, a report was published of a cadet in an officers' cadet training unit who had been found guilty of stealing a foreign stamp. He was returned to his unit as deemed to be unfit to be an officer, but, according to the decision in this case, if a man is already an officer and steals, he can continue to be an officer without punishment other than a reprimand. Under the National Service Acts, an officer, if dismissed, can be called up for service in the ranks in one or other of the Services, so that the State would not lose his services. Therefore, he would have an opportunity to make good. Even under those circumstances he would be infinitely better off than my corporal, who had to undergo several months' imprisonment in degrading circumstances and in company with deserters and other serious military offenders. Whether my submission is correct or not as to what should have been done with the officer, both sentences cannot be right. In his letter, my right hon. Friend held decentralisation up as a bogy. That was the reason for his non-intervention—the soldier suffers injustice, but the system which administers it must be upheld. He also said, "Commission of an offence by an N.C.O. is doubly serious." How many times more serious is it when committed by an officer? But the punishment is so much less.

Mr. Denville: In this case?

Mr. Robertson: I hope only in this case. The Minister is head of a great Department which enjoys the worst reputation for administration among all the Departments of State. Prior to his coming here as Minister, he was the Permanent Head. He therefore has a considerable responsibility for the maladministration of his Department. I should like to assure him that, whatever else may be tolerated, two brands of justice will not be tolerated by Parliament or by the people.

Sir Frank Sanderson: I have a case in my own constituency of a captain who has done excellent service in the Army who took five gallons of petrol. He was court-martialled and dismissed the Service. I was advised on the highest


possible authority that it would be unwise for me to pursue the matter any further. I merely raise the point to demonstrate that it certainly cannot be said that on all occasions my right hon. Friend differentiates between commissioned and noncommissioned officers.

Mr. Denville: To hear a Member of this House say in cold blood that a corporal who has taken two gallons of petrol is punished so severely, and a commissioned officer who commits a worst offence gets off by being told that he must not do it again, is scandalous, and I hope it is not true. If it is true, the Secretary of State has something to answer for, but in the interests of the Army I hope it is not true.

Mr. Martin: I want to raise one point in connection with Army justice to which I hope the Secretary of State will pay some attention. A number of cases have been brought to my notice lately in which men have been sentenced by their commanding officer for committing some crime and subsequently have had their leave stopped. It is customary for punishment to expunge the crime, and two punishments, one passed at the moment of the infliction of justice and another imposed later, without the knowledge of the convicted man that it was going to be imposed, is a very serious miscarriage of justice according to British ideas, and it is a great hardship on the family and the friends of the convicted man. A great deal of distress, anxiety and sorrow have been caused, to the knowledge of some of us, by cases of this kind, and I feel that there is a case for inquiry into the administration of justice in the Army. When I was an officer in the last war, certainly in my unit no company commander would have got away with that kind of conduct.

It being the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Pym.]

Mr. Martin: In some of these cases the deprivation of leave was not included in the original sentence, and it seems to me, in view of this kind of case and of the case which has been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Robertson),

that there is some ground for an inquiry by the right hon. Gentleman into the administration of justice in the Army.

The Secretary of State for War (Sir James Grigg): The hon. Member who raised this question dealt with two different cases. He dealt with the question in two parts. His first contention was that the punishment of the corporal was excessive in itself, and then, having discovered a case later on which appeared on the face of it to have been dealt with more leniently, he contended that there was in the Army a caste system or discrimination between officers and other ranks in the administration of justice.

Mr. Robertson: I never said anything of the kind, and my right hon. Friend must not impute a meaning to my words which I did not intend. I made no reference to a caste system. I dealt with two different cases of men in the same company who committed offences about the same time.

Sir J. Grigg: The hon. Member suggested that an officer was treated more leniently than a corporal, and he went on to develop a considerable argument—I am within the recollection of the House—that there was discrimination in the exercise of justice in the Army. Perhaps I may be allowed to deal with the question in the same way, that is, first to deal with the case of the corporal on its merits, and then to deal with the case of the officer. At the end I will put to the House whether there has in fact been any discrimination.
The hon. Member recited the history of the case and read out my letter quite accurately, and, as he pointed out, I cannot pretend that he was appeased by my letter. He raised the matter again in the House on 23rd June and brought forward the case of the officer who, on the face of it, had been treated more leniently. The suggestion at that time, if he will remind himself of his supplementary question, was definitely that there was discrimination generally in the treatment of officers and other ranks. It will be within the recollection of the House that the hon. Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon) mentioned this suggestion when he asked,
Does not this case bear out the contention that there is a caste system in the Army?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd June, 1942; col. 1797, Vol. 380.]


Perhaps I may deal with the contention of the hon. Member about the gravity of the corporal's offence. In reading my letter, he set out the Army Council Instructions, which pointed out that the Army took a very serious view of the theft of petrol, and it has done its best to stimulate courts and confirming officers who deal with cases of theft of petrol to deal with them seriously. The hon. Member made great play both in his speech and in his letter to my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary with the argument that the soldier takes an entirely different kind of view about theft from the view a civilian takes, and that in the Army there is no such thing as stealing; in other words, that a civilian steals things and that a soldier wins or scrounges them. I am asked to believe that this state of affairs is not only inevitable but perfectly reasonable. Indeed, I caught myself wondering during the hon. Member's speech whether he did not regard the theft of petrol as a praiseworthy act.
Whether the hon. Member's description of the Army's attitude to other people's property is accurate or not I do not propose to argue, beyond saying that I do not believe it. It is not in accordance with any experience of mine, and I am sure it is not in accordance with the experience of most other people. All I am concerned with is that petrol stealing is a very serious business indeed, and when we reflect that this commodity is brought to this country by merchant seamen at the risk of their lives, it seems to be going a little far to suggest that the theft of petrol is not only a venial offence but that it is not an offence at all. Then, in his correspondence at any rate, the hon. Member develops another kind of argument, that because so many of these cases of theft or waste are undiscovered, it is unjust to punish offenders who are discovered. I leave hon. Members to reflect at leisure upon the implications of that remark.

Mr. Robertson: My right hon. Friend is referring to correspondence which has not been raised in this House. I am certain that I wrote no letter to any Minister suggesting that any theft should go unpunished. My point from beginning to end has been the severity of the sentence in this case.

An Hon. Member: And there is the inequality of sentences.

Sir J. Grigg: I shall deal with the inequality argument afterwards. I am dealing first with the severity argument, and I am clear, on reading the hon. Member's correspondence, that the implication is as I stated—that stealing in the Army is not theft, and I personally am not prepared to admit any contention that the theft or the waste of petrol is an offence which ought not to be severely dealt with. Suggestions to the contrary seem to carry us a good long way not only in the Army but as regards the civil courts also. Let me try to deal with the case of unequal treatment between the officer and the man. The hon. Member has expressly disclaimed that he raised any suggestion of a caste system, though it was raised in the Supplementary Question.

Mr. Robertson: Not by me. I have no association with the hon. Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon). I do not control the words he utters. If he uses words implying a caste system, they must not be put into my mouth, because I did not use them then or at any other time.

Sir J. Grigg: The hon. Member's own words were:
Is there not something wrong with a system which punishes the corpora] so severely and lets the officer off so lightly? "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd June, 1942; col. 1797, Vol. 380.]
I was in the process of saying, when the hon. Member interrupted me, that I did not propose to deal with the caste system, as he expressly disclaimed it. Perhaps the House will allow me to make a few preliminary observations. I am now dealing with the discrimination issue in regard to the punishments prescribed by the Army Act. The punishments awarded in individual cases for offences which on the face of them are very similar do undoubtedly differ, not only between officers and other ranks but between soldiers of the same rank, apart from differences in the circumstances of the case, and no two sets of circumstances are exactly the same.
The difference also arises for other reasons. In the first place—and it is a very important consideration—in assessing sentence the past record and services of the individual are taken into account, and although I do not wish to pontificate on a subject of which I know nothing I understand that is the position in civil justice also. Then we have the fact that the


Army Act prescribes a different set of punishments for the officer and for the soldier, not at all because of the existence of any caste system or a desire to discriminate or to treat one more leniently than the other, but because the circumstances are different and because the consequences of punishments to officers and other ranks are different. For the soldier there is, in this case, but for the officer there is not, the punishment of detention, which is not the gross sort of imprisonment which the hon. Member suggested, t is a remedial kind of confinement which allows a man to go on with his military training in a good many directions. For an officer, no punishment is provided—I am talking about the Army Act—short of dismissal, except a severe reprimand or a reprimand.
There are, of course, more severe punishments than dismissal, such as cashiering and even imprisonment. In this matter it is necessary to bear in mind that a sentence of dismissal or cashiering not only ends a man's career as an officer but makes it extremely difficult for him to get a livelihood in civil life. Undoubtedly a sentence of imprisonment on an officer inevitably involves the determination of his military career; so that the punishment does not fall quite equally on the two classes. In the light of these considerations let us consider the case of the officer. The officer was sentenced to dismissal. The one consideration which the hon. Member has left out is that the court-martial, which, heard all the evidence, recommended him to mercy. In military law, a recommendation to mercy is a very rare occurrence and a very significant one. Perhaps I might be permitted to quote from the Manual of Military Law. For hon. Members who may want to refer to it I will gve the reference: Chapter 5, paragraph 84, page 62. The Manual of Military Law on that page says:
In view of the discretion of the court in the matter of awarding sentence, recommendation to mercy will be exceptional. It will usually be made only when the court, though unwilling to pass a lenient sentence lest the offence should be considered a venial one, think that, owing to the offender's character or other exceptional circumstances, he should not suffer the full penalty which the offence would otherwise demand.
Recommendation to mercy has to be promulgated as well as a confirmation of the proceedings, and promulgation therefore

would make it clear that the offence of which the accused was convicted was a serious one, deserving, in normal circumstances, a sentence of dismissal; but that the confirming officer accepted the opinion of the court that, owing to the offender's character or other exceptional circumstances, a sentence of dismissal was greater than the accused deserved. As a recommendation to mercy is such a rare occurrence and can only be made in exceptional circumstances, it is a consideration to which a confirming officer must pay serious attention. This officer was aged 50, so that there was no question of his being called up in the ranks and going on with his military career exactly as if nothing had happened. Dismissal would have fallen with great severity on him. He would have found the greatest difficulty at his age in living down his disgrace and in finding any means of livelihood. He had previously had a good record in this war and he had served throughout the last war in the ranks. Certainly, I do not see how the confirming authority could have failed to take account of the recommendation to mercy.
Let me say a word on the general question of the severity of sentence against officers for petrol offences. The hon. Member drew the conclusion from this one instance that this was a general practice. I have taken the trouble to look up the cases of officers who have been court-miartialled for petrol offences in the last 12 months or so. There are 28 of them; in only eight of those was the final sentence less than dismissal, and in a number of them it was even more severe, including even imprisonment, and, as I said just now, imprisonment for an officer is a very different affair from detention for a soldier. I am confident that the arguments and facts that I have given dispose of the case for discrimination, not only in that particular case, but in general. If an hon. Member is still disposed to think that in the present case favouritism was Shown because the offender belonged to the officer class, it may not be out of place to add that he was not a Regular officer, and to repeat that he served in the ranks during the whole of the last war.
There remains the question of trying to ensure that the decentralisation which is part of the policy of the Army Council does not result in an undue lack of uniformity in sentences. The hon. Member was pleased to be almost facetious about


a passage in my letter dealing with the policy of decentralisation. He went on to say that the War Office was the worst administered Department in the State, and that it was all my fault. I personally have had a good deal of experience of the administration of Government Departments, not only in this country but abroad, and I say without any hesitation that the War Office is not a badly-administered Department. That being so, it disposes of the argument that it is my fault. For the last two years I have spent a great deal of time on administrative problems, and I have done my best to urge, in and out of season, the policy of decentralisation, which means that business shall be transacted as near to the line as possible and as far from the War Office as possible. In that way you cut out what is known as the "paper war," and reduce red tape to a minimum. It is a very difficult process to reverse the tendency and traditions—I was going to say of 40 years, but it is much longer than that—of 100 years. It is very difficult to reverse that process, but it seems to me absolutely essential, for the efficiency of administration of an Army which has expanded 10 times, that it should be done. The administration of justice is one of the matters in which there has been a further decentralisation, and I am not in the least penitent about using the argument which I did use to the hon. Member to the effect that I am not called upon to interfere with the judgments of Commanders-in-Chief in the Army Commands unless I feel it absolutely vital to do so. The whole essence of the policy of decentralisation or delegation is that you should trust the people to whom you have delegated, and that is, so far as I am concerned, the policy of the War Office and one which will be pursued.
I turned aside there to say a few sentences about decentralisation because it seems to me that it is a very important issue indeed, and nothing would induce me to sit silent while its importance is being belittled. There remains the question of trying to ensure that the decentralisation which is a very important part of the policy of the Army Council does not result in an undue lack of uniformity in sentences. I seem to remember, even in the short time I have been in this House, similar complaints being made about civil sentences. Of course, that sort of thing must happen when you have a

dispersed system of justice, and when you remember, in particular, that no higher authority in the Army can increase a penalty but can only reduce it, a certain number of instances are inevitable, in the Army as elsewhere. In some cases the apparent lack of uniformity is undoubtedly due to the fact that the circumstances differ. You must not forget that the court after all is in the best position to appraise the circumstances.

Mr. Bellenger: But because of that very factor, does it not sometimes occur that the sentences given by the court-martial are greater than they might otherwise be, because they know that those sentences, while they cannot be increased, can be reduced and often are reduced by the confirming authority?

Sir J. Grigg: I suppose there is a tendency for them to regard the severity of the offence and to leave the confirming officer to attach the importance to the special circumstances and previous service. I think that is the tendency in a case of that sort, I am talking about the question of getting uniformity in the final sentences. I am quite prepared to consider whether, without reversing the policy of decentralisation, because I am not prepared to do that, we can devise some means of reducing the lack of uniformity to a minimum. Guidance in the assessment of sentences has already been given to those concerned, and I will see whether something further is possible in the way of producng uniformity, but in any case I give the House this assurance, that it can rely on me personally and on the Army Council to see to it that nothing in the way of class discrimination is countenanced. I hope that I have said enough to show that there is nothing in this particular instance that suggests that anything of the sort exists at present.

Mr. Robertson: May I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that he has not dealt at all with the severity of the sentence passed by the court? He has dealt at great length with the good character of the officer and with the fact of the court being influenced by the effect of its decision on his future in civilian life. The corporal, although of another rank, also has to find employment in civil life and also has a stain against him in the future.

Earl Winterton: I do not think the Debate


ought to end without a word of commendation from somebody for what the right hon. Gentleman has just said. This is more important than any individual case or individual grievance. It concerns the position of the whole Army. I wish to say, respectfully and humbly, that I agree with every word he says. I consider the court-martial system in the British Army is the fairest system of justice in the whole world. I had experience of it in the last war—

Mr. Denville: And what did they sentence you to? [Laughter.]

Earl Winterton: —This is a serious matter. I sat on many courts-martial. I think that it would be very wrong at this critical moment that it should go out from the House that it is anything but a very fair system of justice. On the question of uniformity, it is impossible to obtain uniformity of sentences unless the Secretary of State for War interferes with all the sentences in every command. Have those who speak about uniformity in sentences never heard of justices' courts? Is there in them uniformity of justice? Uniformity does not exist under our British system of justice. There is another point which to me is an important one. If the House feels, as it is entitled to feel, that military law is wrong, that the Army Act is wrong, it should, not on this occasion, bring forward amendments to produce another system of justice. It might well be, for instance, that there might be some system of penal battalions, such as exists in other armies. But it is the Army Act under which we are working.
I want to say this, and I do not care if the whole House is offended by what I say, because it is time it was said: There is far too much tolerance at the present time in both civil and military offences about breaches in the age-old law of meum and tuum. There is too much stealing going on in this country, far too much, both among citizens and Service men. When one thinks, as the right hon. Gentleman reminded us, of the way in which the lives of men are being risked to bring petrol to this country, I do not think that six months' imprisonment is at all too heavy a sentence for the offence. I would like to see every person in this country, whether soldier, civilian, airman or sailor, who is found guilty of the very serious crime of stealing things which are brought here at the risk of the lives of our sailors dealt with firmly. My hon. Friend has

been quite fair in bringing this case forward, but I think the answer which has been given by the right hon. Gentleman is a fair one. It is all very well to jeer at the War Office and to say, "This poor wretched office." The people who ought to be jeered at are Members of this House who for generations starved and neglected the British Army, and who in war-time expect so much of it. Many of those who, in peace-time, have treated it as a Department for which no one has any use, expect it in war-time to expand ten times and then complain because it does not get an efficient organisation. When hon. Members get up in war-time and complain of the War Office, I am reminded that if they had been more active and had gone in for a bigger Army in peace-time, that sort of thing would not have occurred.

Sir Henry Morris-Jones: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War whether he deals with equal severity with officials in the War Office who are responsible for the waste of petrol? I gave an instance the other day at Question time in this House where 30 cwt. lorries were sent down to Devonshire on the order of an official of the War Office, which was completely unnecessary because the unit was moving by train to London, and involved the expenditure of 3,000 gallons of petrol. Does the right hon. Gentleman carry out, in the higher ranks of the administration of the War Office, the same severity of sentence among officials of the Department who have been proved to have been responsible for gross waste?

Sir J. Grigg: Waste is a different offence from theft. It is a serious offence, but I do not punish people until their case has been investigated. This particular case is being investigated.

Sir H. Morris-Jones: Did not the right hon. Gentleman admit to me in reply to my Question in this House that the statement was correct?

Sir J. Grigg: That is not within my recollection.

Sir H. Morris-Jones: If the right hon. Gentleman will look at the OFFICIAL REPORT, he will see that he admitted the facts that I gave to be correct, and I want to ask whether any punishment has been meted out to the official in the War Office responsible for gross waste of that character.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.